Hello, there.

We met wiith the surgeon Dr. Lafreniere late this afternoon. Mom has lobular cancer - it relates to the milk ducts in the breast. These are never discovered early with mammograms - only with ultrasounds! Thank goodness my mom's GP did detect something manually and ordered the US as well as the mammo.

Surgery will involve a mastectomy, simply because there are two areas of concern and they are a type III. Mom will get an injection the day before surgery of a radioactive material that will travel to several lymph nodes. A couple of them will be removed and tested while Mom is under. If those two have no cancer then the lymph nodes will be left alone.

The procedure will take one hour and mom will be at Foothills overnight, unless circumstances dictate a longer stay. Yeah, that surprised me too!

As he said, "When you wake up you will be cancer-free." Virtually NO chance of recurrence and no follow-up radiation or chemo. Tamoxifen is a possibility but that will be discussed later.

Mom is bumped to the top of the surgery list - the next opening is hers. This can take up to 3 weeks but Dr. L expects it will be sooner than that.

If there is good news about cancer, this is the best news we could get. Thanks so much for your care and concern.


Mom is very relieved - I think I am too!