I don't have cancer
I don't have cancer or indeed anything wrong with me but everyone at work is looking at me as if I'm wriddled with it. I told a few people so there wouldn't be questions asked when I'm not around. I'm wondering if everyone knows now or are they just hot and those expressions are their it's to hot in here faces. Everyone has been really nice, supportive and helpful but I am a little tired of sympathy.
A's surgery being scheduled for the 22nd, a week later than we were originally told. This sucks mainly because it delays the staging of the axilla. This isn't the putting on of a Greek tragedy.
Cancer is described it terms of grade and stage which determine prognosis. Grade is how aggressive the cancer cells look when examined under a microscope. How angry they look. How likely the cells are to come away from the body of the primary tumor and spread in the lymphatics to distant sites. A's tumor is grade 2 (out of 5) which is not very aggressive which is good. But we don't know the stage. We don't know if the cancerous cells have moved down the road (lymphatics) to the armpit (axilla). If they have they will be waiting in the lymph nodes. We want to know the lymph nodes are clear. Ms C thinks they are, Mr S thinks they are. I'm really hopeful that they are and I haven't been able to find any swollen lymph nodes in A's axilla. They ultrasounded A's axilla and took a needle biopsy of a tiny little lymph node and the sample came back as too small to test. In truth we just won't know until after she has had the surgery.
About a week after surgery they will have two pieces of news for us.
If they are positive though all hope is not lost. A is young, strong and healthy and I'm still confident she'd be ok. Her youth and health mean that she can take very aggressive forms of treatment. These forms of treatment can be summed up as poison and radiation that you hope the cancer can stand less well then the host. It's these treatments and their physical and psychological effects on A that I am fearful of. I'm still not entertaining the prospect of loosing her.
A's strength is incredible and its more her supporting me than the other way round. I hope that as time goes on I will be more useful to her and I will make sure she goes through none of it on her own.
A's surgery being scheduled for the 22nd, a week later than we were originally told. This sucks mainly because it delays the staging of the axilla. This isn't the putting on of a Greek tragedy.
Cancer is described it terms of grade and stage which determine prognosis. Grade is how aggressive the cancer cells look when examined under a microscope. How angry they look. How likely the cells are to come away from the body of the primary tumor and spread in the lymphatics to distant sites. A's tumor is grade 2 (out of 5) which is not very aggressive which is good. But we don't know the stage. We don't know if the cancerous cells have moved down the road (lymphatics) to the armpit (axilla). If they have they will be waiting in the lymph nodes. We want to know the lymph nodes are clear. Ms C thinks they are, Mr S thinks they are. I'm really hopeful that they are and I haven't been able to find any swollen lymph nodes in A's axilla. They ultrasounded A's axilla and took a needle biopsy of a tiny little lymph node and the sample came back as too small to test. In truth we just won't know until after she has had the surgery.
About a week after surgery they will have two pieces of news for us.
- Firstly they will have been able to examine the whole of the tumor by slicing it into thousands of slices and examining every one under a microscope. This takes at least a week. They will hopefully be able to confirm that the grade determined by the earlier small biopsies is correct and representative of the whole population of cancer cells in the tumor. They will tell us the real grade. Normally this is the same as the biopsy grade.
- Secondly they will also be able to tell us if the sentinel node has or does not have cancer cells in it. The sentinel node is the first node to filter the lymph from a region that contains a cancer. It is determined by injecting, at the time of surgery, methylin blue dye into the fatty breast tissue around the tumor. The dye moves with the tissue fluid in the lymphatic drainage network and will collect in the lymph nodes (glands). The first lymph node in the drainage chain will be the one that goes a very obvious blue colour the others will be their normal creamy yellow colour. It will be in the axilla, so the surgeon will make a small incision in the armpit to go looking for it. If the sentinal node is positive for cancer cells then they will count what proportion of the other nodes that were sampled are also positive.
If they are positive though all hope is not lost. A is young, strong and healthy and I'm still confident she'd be ok. Her youth and health mean that she can take very aggressive forms of treatment. These forms of treatment can be summed up as poison and radiation that you hope the cancer can stand less well then the host. It's these treatments and their physical and psychological effects on A that I am fearful of. I'm still not entertaining the prospect of loosing her.
A's strength is incredible and its more her supporting me than the other way round. I hope that as time goes on I will be more useful to her and I will make sure she goes through none of it on her own.
4 Comments:
Aw Phil. That last para made me cry. I really don't think A could have a better boyfriend to help her get through whatever it is that comes next.
And I now know a lot more about breast cancer than I did. Question then: does the fact that Kylie has v short hair mean she had positive nodes?
xxx jo
Correctomondo! Yes he is the best.
Love him loads. xxx
Kylie almost certainly had posetive nodes. The only other explaination is that she had neoadjuvant chemo which is chemo in advance of surgery which aims to shrink a large tumour to make it small enough for breast conserving surgery. Most likely she had node posetive disease.
This guy is incredible. Not only can he explain cancer in simple, accessible terms, apparently unflinching, just like a real doctor. But also, he comes over as not at all a cynical human being but amazingly supportive. I really do believe he means it - every single promise he makes - in public too. It's humbling. Changes my view of life (and love)
Has begun some kind of conversion process. There could be a road to Damascus experience awaiting me here.
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