Doc news

So I don't think I wrote about it here, but my cancer is so small now a PET scan can't detect it. A mammogram can though, and though my tumor itself is small enough for a lumpectomy, there are several calcifications in my breast and so I will be having a mastectomy (on April 15). They will remove my left breast and the lymph nodes in my armpit. I'll spend the night in the hospital and go home the next day. I'll have drains in place for a few weeks which I will have to empty twice a day. Then, a month after surgery, I'll start radiation. That will be for seven weeks, five days a week. Six months after that, I can have reconstructive surgery. I'm gonna meet with my plastic surgeon on Monday to ask some questions. But basically, I won't be able to have an implant because of the radiation (it tightens your skin too much for tissue expanders). So I will probably have a TRAM flap, which is where they basically do a tummy tuck and use that skin/muscle/fat or something to reconstruct my breast. I could choose to have a double mastectomy for aesthetic reasons, but there's not a medical reason to do so (however, doc can make it sound like one so insurance would pay for it). Doc said a double mastectomy would be neither helpful nor harmful, it's up to me. I'm kinda leaning toward a single mastectomy, will see what the plastic surgeon says though. Anyway, that's the news for now!