Post-Mastectomy Report for Genora

My mother-in-law Genora went back to the surgeon who did her mastectomy on Friday (one week after her surgery). She is healing well and was relieved to have the drain tubes removed.

After testing the tissues and the lymph nodes they removed in surgery it seems Genora's cancer was pretty extensive and involved most of the breast tissue removed. Before the mastectomy they first took out 3 lymph nodes to test them. I am told that if those lymph nodes had been cancer free they would not have bothered to remove any other lymph nodes. But two out of the three contained cancer. So they ended up taking a total of 14 lymph nodes - 9 of which were cancerous. This means that her cancer is closer to a stage 3 or 4 than the stage 2 they originally thought.

The next step for Genora will be to visit two oncologists - a medical oncologist for hormone therapy and a radiology oncologist for radiation treatments. She doesn't know yet if they will need to do chemo. They think they got all the cancer for now, but may recommend chemo to make sure it doesn't come back. Nothing is going to happen for 4 to 6 weeks because she needs to heal from her surgery first.

I'm happy to report she is in good spirits and keeping a positive outlook. I appreciate all the good wishes and prayers for her.