Julie25

Thanks for your article Julie51! Wish I had read it before they discovered my extremely slow moving DCIS. I had a segmentectomy about two years ago. I refused radiation and chemo after that because I didn't like the thought of either. That entire process was tough.

First I got a biopsy two weeks before the operation. The needle in that first biopsy was like a knitting needle with a hole in the centre. If you want to see what it looked like, look up the VERICHIP on You Tube. It was exactly like the needles they use to implant microchips.

Because I read about it beforehand I realized they put such things in women’s breasts to mark the spot of the operation. (Guess they figure the breast is the size of a football field). Not wanting that, I asked them to please not put them in. They’re not called microchips anymore by the way. They’re called titanium breast markers. They promised they wouldn't put any chips inside. Hopefully they told the truth!

Although the biopsy itself wasn't too painful the inflammation that followed for the next couple of weeks was bad. I described it as a swollen red hot VERY ANGRY breast that had been suddenly awakened from a comfortable peaceful sleep! The wait for the operation seemed much too long at that point, yet that was probably good because it allowed the swelling time to go down.

After a couple of weeks I had to go to get wires put into my breast so the doctor would know where to operate. Then i headed to the hospital and waited for awhile. it was even more sore then.

I guess they were telling the truth about the chips not being put in as I requested; otherwise i probably wouldn't have also had the wires put in. But come to think of it, if I didn’t have chip put in, why did they need to use that huge knitting type needle with the hole in it? I still don't understand everything.

The next day they wanted to inject some radiation chemical (Techtenium I think it was called) into my breast before the operation. By then I was afraid of all that breast mauling, feeling that if I didn’t have cancer before, I was sure headed for it now, so I declined at the last minute.

They then asked if they could at least inject blue dye so they could find the lymph nodes. Since I escaped the conscious pain of the third one, and they would do this while I was “unconscious,” so there would be no pain, I reluctantly agreed.

Eight hours later I woke in comfort in a beautiful vibrating bed but with tubes in my nose and a huge patch over my breast for external stitches. After that I dosed off immediately and fell asleep for another 8 with the same breathing tubes as well as well as morphine draining into my arm. The operation was at 2 PM and I woke permanently at 8 AM the following day -- in other words, 16 hours after the operation. Then they said to go to the bathroom to get rid of the blue liquid. That wasn't easy because the anaesthetic made me forget how and without drinking water all night, there wasn't much to get rid of. I felt good after that and wanted to go home even though they said I could stay another day if I wanted. At 10 AM I was felling so well I left.

They had great news that day. The two Stage-1 cancer lumps they removed (each about an inch) had been very slow growing so they hadn't spread to the lymph nodes. Wow! Great! Later though, I started to think, "what if it hadn’t been cancer at all, and they just didn't have the heart to say so after all of that pain and trouble?"

Seriously though, it had to be. Fortunately I had received a digital mammogram before all of this took place. That meant it was possible to purchase the pictures (CD) for $30 and take a good long look at (which i did for nearly a year before the operation because i couldn't make hide nor hair of it and could find no good explanations on the internet) . Finally I took it to the cancer society and said, ‘if you think this is cancer, please show me in this picture why." The nurse was fantastic and explained the difference between cancer and a cyst. After that there was no doubt. Cancer is so ugly in a picture compared. Had I not had plenty of time to absorb that CD in detail, I likely would never have believed it was cancer and would most certainly have refused the operation.

Once I got home and the morphine wore off the pain was unbearable! They had given me about 10 extra strong pills and I started popping two at a time. My breast was swollen and flaming red so I drove to the clinic in fear to have it checked out, forgetting I was drugged to the eyeballs.

It was tough functioning on my own. By the third day I had accidentally torn out two stitches merely by attempting to put shoes on. Of course I couldn't see the stitches because they were internal but the tearing could be felt, and liquid ran down the inside.

By then my orange-sized breast was about five times bigger than normal! It was only then that I realized I had no drain tube! When I called, they said it wasn’t an oversight. It was just the way they did things sometimes. So women should always ask about that beforehand.

Now the breast was so filled with water that I couldn’t carry the weight. I should have gone to the store in advance to not only purchase the most solid bra they had, but also one with a cup size about four times bigger than normal! There was no way a normal bra would hold all of that squishy weight up! As I moved, it would go sqwish, sqwish. it was so painful I spent most of the next few days in bed.

When i was up i walked with my arm against my breast. This continued for nearly 2 weeks for about 8 hours a day during waking time. Today when I see a woman walking with her arm against her breast I know she has just had a breast cancer operation.

The 4-1/2 inch wound from that operation is still red and sore, although the three inch one under the armpit has long been healed. Before the mammogram i had no pain whatsoever. But I think it's starting to heal now and the pain will be gone in a few months.

It's been about 1-1/2 years since that operation and i still haven't gone for another mammogram, although I do worry constantly that all of those treatments should surely foster a much more aggressive cancer in the future.

I have also since developed centre chest pain which continues for several days a week. Hopefully it's not heart damage from the blue dye or anaesthetic (After all, I did sleep for 16 hours afterward and was so tired it was an effort to breathe at all, which is probably why the breathing tube was there. With a healhty night time rate of about 40 beats per minute, who knows what the pulse reading was at the time.

I don't know if I've done the right thing. If another woman asked for advice I wouldn't know what to say. But if i had to do it over again for my self, i might have chosen a double mastectomy instead. Segmentectomies or lumpectomies generally require more painful preparatory work and have a higher risk of coming back. They also generally require more radiation (for the innocent stage of cancer I had). Again though, i did refuse the radiation and chemo.

By the way there was no detectable lump before all of this started. The entire discovery happened when my doctor insisted I go for a mammogram after not having had one for a few years. He did know I had calcifications several years earlier though.

I haven't had a mammogram since that operation about 1-1/2 years ago so I don't know if it has spread. Sticking an inflamed breast under a mammogram sounds quite silly to me at the moment -- insane to be honest. Nature never designed women's breasts to be treated so brutally, especially wounded ones.

Cancer itself doesn't hurt. It's the procedures and operations that hurt for months or years! Whether those things in themselves cause more aggressive cancers, I might not know for awhile, but the suspicion is definitely there. When you get cancer, your choices in treating it are much like playing Russian Roulette.