This is the Itinerary as given me for March 17th. It will be similar on March 29th except the times will be a little more scrunched together. The actual surgery is to be at 11:30 AM.
8:00 AM Duration: 2 hour
Scheduled procedure: NM Sentinel node: breast
(Radioactive isotopes injected into the breast in order to track how many sentinel nodes I have and their location.)
Scheduled procedure: Ultrasound local to follow
(This is to locate where the 'core' or 'epicenter' of the cancer is within the lump.)
10:00 AM Duration: 1 hour
Scheduled procedure: US Breast localization: wire localization, films doctor
(A guide wire - based on the ultrasound which is to provide the location of the 'core' - will be inserted to give the surgeon the best idea on how much to take out: cancerous lump and the margin around it.)
11:30 AM Duration: 3 hours
Scheduled procedure: Left breast lumpectomy with ultrasound wire localization, left auxiliary sentinel lymph node biopsy
(This is it! The sentinel lymph node(s) will be extracted and tested real-time for cancer. Then follows the lumpectomy.)
After a recovery period (waking up from the anesthesia), I will go home. I will be a little sore for the next few days under the arm. Maureen's experience was that it didn't particularly stop her from most activities. She just took it a little slower and did fewer things.
Follow-up visit with the systemic oncologist: Thursday, April 27, 2006 at 3:20 pm. Duration: 20 min.
(The reason for the amount of time elapsed between operation and oncologist visit is to allow the body to fully heal before introducing additional follow-up treatments.)
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