Friends of Hal

Met with my breast cancer surgeon today to go over the pathology results from surgery.

There is a little good and bad in the report.  The good being, the breast area has been cleared of all cancerous cells.  The area tested around the tumor showed at least 7 other friends of Hal ranging from .1 to 1.5 cm in dimension, distributed in upper inner, upper outer, and lower outer quadrants.  And, the area was larger than originally thought – 10 cm.  So it was a good decision to go with the full mastectomy.  The skin and nipple also showed no evidence of malignancy, which was good.  

The bad came in the lymph nodes.  The sentinel lymph node tested during surgery was positive for metastatic carcinoma.  Thus, 17 other lymph nodes were harvested for further testing.  Three of the seventeen were also positive for metastatic carcinoma.

Conclusion – Staging T1N1 = Stage 2B cancer

Next step, to make an appointment with an oncologist to determine when chemotherapy will start.

Blah!!

On a lighter note, the putrid smell coming from the surgical area is not infected.  Apparently when you cannot wash an area of your body for a week it begins to smell like a rotting dead animal.  Since I usually spend a lot of time in the water, I have never encountered this before.