Yesterday morning I had what I hope to be the last surgery--the final chapter in a long saga.
So now I am complete again with a brand spankin new nipple on the left.
I'm a little sore where they took skin from my stomach, but feel pretty good otherwise. I tried to talk Dr. Nathan into taking a lot of skin from my stomach, but he didn't really go for that.
It will take about a week for the skin graft to "work," so I have to dry and pretty inactive until next Wednesday. Can't wait to see the final product!
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Sue Sassmann's fight against breast cancer.
About Me
- Sue Sassmann
- A day after my 38th birthday, I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. As a wife and mother of three beautiful daughters, I never imaged my life would take this path.
Behind the Scenes
Background for what's going on now...I was diagnosed on Friday, March 28, 2008 with breast cancer—infiltrating ductal carcinoma (also called invasive ductal carcinoma). Atypical cells–cells that, for an unknown reason, mutated as they grew–have collected in the ducts in the breast. At some point, these atypical cells broke through the duct wall, and started moving into the surrounding tissue. This is when the cancer crossed the line from DCIS–ductal carcinoma in situ–to invasive (infiltrating) ductal carcinoma–IDC. It’s the most common type of breast cancer.
I am ER (estrogen receptor) and PR (progesterone receptor) positive and HER2 negative. All that basically means is that my prognosis is good and I’ll respond well to treatment. Blood work and chest x-ray are clear!
After the MRI, it was determined that the right side is clear, but they found another spot on the left closer to the breast bone. Because I’m opting for the mastectomy on the left, they don’t have to test it, they’ll just remove it.
Surgery was April 28 and the results of the surgery weren't as good as we had hoped. The surgery and the mastectomy went alright, however they found cancer cells in the lymph gland nearest the cancer. Dr. Radford took out the remaining lymph glands on the left side. We are looking at aggressive chemo in hopes of killing any remaining cancer cells and reconstruction looks like it'll be in three months or so.
I am ER (estrogen receptor) and PR (progesterone receptor) positive and HER2 negative. All that basically means is that my prognosis is good and I’ll respond well to treatment. Blood work and chest x-ray are clear!
After the MRI, it was determined that the right side is clear, but they found another spot on the left closer to the breast bone. Because I’m opting for the mastectomy on the left, they don’t have to test it, they’ll just remove it.
Surgery was April 28 and the results of the surgery weren't as good as we had hoped. The surgery and the mastectomy went alright, however they found cancer cells in the lymph gland nearest the cancer. Dr. Radford took out the remaining lymph glands on the left side. We are looking at aggressive chemo in hopes of killing any remaining cancer cells and reconstruction looks like it'll be in three months or so.
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