One of the most popular posts on this site has been, “I Didn’t Expect THAT: Breast Changes“, so I thought it might be useful to revisit the subject now after a few years have passed since my initial lumpectomy for breast cancer.
Before my surgery, I had been frustrated by the lack of information about how much tissue would be removed along with my tumor. Or maybe I was just too afraid to search. In either case, I had prepared myself to lose a good chunk of my left breast. All the “after” photos of lumpectomies that I found on the internet were not pretty.
However, my tumor was only 1.6cm at its longest, and was on the outer upper quadrant of breast, and this turned out to offer me the best of all possibilities. There was amazingly little breast size lost. I was impressed. So was my surgeon.
So, fast forward to now, three and a half years down the road. The scars, one for the lumpectomy and the other for lymph node excision, remain very uninteresting in a good way. Only three sentinel lymph nodes were removed, and the scar for that sits up in my armpit. The lumpectomy scar is situated a bit further down and into the side of my breast. But it’s not obvious.
The biggest issue I have had with the lumpectomy scar is that the scar tissue there feels like a biggish lump itself. Not frightening for me anymore, but when I went to a new gynecologist who, I suspect, forgot that I had had breast cancer (HOW? That’s the main thing I talked about!), she felt that area and said, “Oh, there’s something here” in that ‘I’m-going-to-say-something-scary-in-a-calm-voice’ kind of way.
Yes, it was just my scar tissue, but for a split-second I wanted to let myself freak out. Didn’t, but wanted to.
But the bottom line is, as time has gone by, the scars remain inconspicuous, and if not for the fact that my affected breast is actually a touch firmer and larger than the healthy one, something attributable to radiation treatment, there’s no obvious sign that I had breast cancer.
Not a bad deal considering what could have happened.
Frantic Shanti 