Saturday, May 17, 2014

WLE aka Lumpectomy

A successful day--all went as planned, more or less.

I spent 8 - 10:30 am digging up the last section of my kitchen garden and setting in five tomato plants, some herbs, 6 seedlings of corn, and three cucumber plants.  On the other side of the yard I replaced a dead pink bougainvillea with a new one.

I showered and reported to the Barbara Kort Women's Imaging Center at 11 am--but was told I was late for my 10:30 appointment.  What???  Oh well... I was there to have a wire implanted before the surgery in order to guide the doctor to the exact spot for the lumpectomy, also called a wide local excision (WLE).

The young doctor and radiation technician couldn't find the lump on the ultrasound screen, so they called in a senior doctor (my age).  I glanced to my right at the screen and couldn't blame them: it looked like a black and white photo of an ocean with a lot of dark waves and some streaks of white.

They decided to do a mammogram to find it and the clip that had been placed three weeks earlier to mark the spot.  That worked well and they felt confident they had found the right spot.  

There was a lot of whispering at the back of the room at intervals.  I wasn't as confident that they had found it, but I wasn't in any position to question things.

All were women--which was great.

After a local anesthetic they stuck a needle in the breast and injected it with blue dye that would identify the lymph node to which this part of the breast drained.  Then they inserted the wire. 

"Squeeze my hand," said Trang Le, the mammogram technician, and I did when they inserted the needle, but she was such a small person I didn't want to hurt her hand by squeezing too hard.

Soon I was swaddled like a baby and wheeled outside to a van waiting on the street where I had often pushed my mother in her wheel chair six years ago.  Ah, the changes that time brings!

I was driven around the corner and the next corner, half-circling the block, and deposited at 1223 16th Street, where I was grandly wheeled in now feeling like a queen on the red carpet.

Soon I was in the Surgical Center on the second floor.  It was about five minutes before 1 pm.  Neither John nor my friend Lee Jones, who were planning to be in the waiting room throughout the surgery, saw me enter.  Just as well. 

I changed to a new surgical gown, met the anesthesiologist--another wonderfully warm woman--who decided to do an EKG before the surgery just in case.

She said she would be giving me propyfol and a gas, as well as something to calm me before surgery.  A nurse put an IV on the back of my right hand.  

Ivar Guttierrez, who had been my wheel chair escort, was now sticking the round disks on my chest and abdomen.  We chatted and as he removed them and left, he said, "Good luck, young lady!"

I never leave that stone unturned.

"I am 66 years old," I said politely.  "I could be your grandmother."

"No, not my grandmother," he reflected.  "My mother is 66 too.  I'm 38."

I sure wasn't going into surgery being addressed like a ten-year-old. 

(Note that today Bobby Shriver, candidate for LA City Council, addressed his rival candidate Sheila Kuhn, as "young lady."  She's about 74 years old.  She let him have it.  Good for her.)

The next thing I knew I was in the same place waking up.  John was sitting there.  

A nurse was telling me that I could drink some cranberry juice and soon get dressed and go home.

I wanted to tell her, "I don't want to go anywhere.  I just want to stay in this bed."

But that was not the plan.  This was an outpatient procedure.  I found that I was wearing a surgical vest (actually a short strait jacket) to keep my sutures and all in place.  Once changed, I was wheeled out and got in John's car, waiting at the curb.

By 5 pm I was home and in bed.  

Allowed to eat for the first time since Thursday evening, I asked for French toast.  

John had to walk the dogs, go to the store for cranberry juice, watch a hockey game, and who knows that else.  The French toast appeared closed to 11 pm.  

Meanwhile I lay in bed answering the phone and calling my brother Bill.  When I told him about the problems locating the tumor to insert the wire, he said that in 5% of lumpectomies, the surgeon can't find the correct spot, and the surgery has to be redone.

He also delivered a complicated lecture on how older people often don't need to do anything about small cancers because the treatments are more dangerous than the slow-growing cancer itself.  Some people die of treatments that would have lived much longer with slow-growing cancer.

I appreciated the prayers of so many friends, and the prayers and vigil of Lee Jones.




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