Why a Lumpectomy?

On Monday, my wonderful surgeon, Jeanne Ballinger, will operate on me and try to remove the cancerous portion of my breast along with what surgeons refer to as "clean margins." That means that they want to remove the cancer and enough non-cancerous tissue in order to be sure that they've gotten all of the bad cells. If this is successful and if my lymph nodes do not contain cancer, then I most likely will graduate to radiation treatments, which will take about 6 weeks, and which, I understand, are very tolerable (and which do not make you sick or make your hair fall out, like chemo does).

Having talked with so many women who have traveled this road, I have decided to try for this breast-conserving approach, not necessarily in an effort to spare my breasts, which truth be told, I could take or leave, but because this surgery is so much less invasive and frankly just makes more sense. If, as has happened to other friends of mine, they go in and do not get "clean margins," or see that the cancer is more extensive than expected, or find anything new, then I suspect I'll be scheduling a double mastectomy in order to have the sisters removed from my body for good so that they can cause me no additional harm. But I feel that I owe it to them, and to myself and my family to at least try a more minimalistic approach first and just see how that goes.

So, we'll see. The big things we'll be looking for on Monday are margins and nodes. We want clean margins and clean nodes. Clean, just about anyway you look at it, is good. So pray for clean, if you will, and for strength for me and for Eli and for my parents, and for wisdom and skill for my surgeons.

So glad to call each of you "friend."

Love,

Erin