Monday, April 27, 2009

4/27/09

Today was radiation treatment #24. So far my skin is a bit burned, but the doctor says it is just as he would expect it to look. I had this past Friday off to give my skin a break and that seemed to help. It is really itchy and a bit sore, so he gave me a corticosteroid cream, called Kenalog to put on it three time a day. Hopefully that will help.


Friday will put me at my 28 treatments he had originally prescribed and then he said I will get either 3 or 6 boosts, depending on how my skin holds up. These boosts are additional radiation to a small part of the initial targeted area. This is usually the area where the lump was found. He is thinking I will probably end up getting three.


On 4/14/09, I went to see a plastic surgeon for a consult. I was less than thrilled about the appointment. He told me that my body will need time to recover from the extensive amount of chemo it has had, before he would be comfortable putting me though a 4 or 5 hour surgery and my skin would need time before he would be able to work with it, due to radiation, so he thought I would be looking at NEXT SPRING!!!!!! I was shocked and so upset by this information.


He then told me that he felt my only reconstruction option was to have procedure called a lat flap. This is where they use the latissimus dorsi muscle and skin from your upper back to create a new breast. An ellipse of skin and the lattissmus dorsi muscle is tunneled from the upper back to the mastectomy area. This means two more scars would be added to my collection.....UGH! I will be going for several other opinions before deciding on a plastic surgeon, so I'm trying to not get discouraged.

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