My doctors all seem to be on the same page about what comes next...surgery and radiation! Apparently they can do the surgery about 3 weeks after my last chemo and after that I'll start radiation. I'm still working out the details, but I expect that the surgeon will recommend a lumpectomy. If I weren't stage IV they would do a double mastectomy, but since the proverbial "horse is out of the barn" they'll skip that and do a quick out-patient lumpectomy. It's a strange thing to wrap your head around, but the fact is; cancer in my breast is the least of my worries. There are micrometastases floating around throughout my body and that's what I worry about. Spending a couple months recovering from a mastectomy is not something I want to do considering I don't know how many months I've got. I'm planning on having lots of months, but you never know with this shit. The lumpectomy should get rid of a lot of what is left and then radiation will hopefully mop up the rest.
This does mean I get to add yet another doctor to my repertoire: a radiation oncologist. Woo Hoo! The bummer is that radiation is a daily thing for 4-6 weeks. I wouldn't mind if it were happening during the school year, but from the looks of things it is going to tie us down for the first part of summer. Not ideal, but there isn't too much to be done about that.
I'll post more as the details become clearer but as it stands, this is pretty much the info we have to go on. As always, there's the possibility that the plan may change. I already have an appointment set to see my 2nd opinion oncologist at UCSF in a couple weeks.
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