Finding the right Docs and making decisions - revisited.

  I ended up having a mast & level 1&2 axillary dissection.   Now, I'm glad I went ahead and did it all without finding a less aggressive surgeon.  Medical details:  2/25 nodes positive, er/pr +, her2-, grade 1, no lymph/angio involvement, extra nodal extension but clear margins all around the nodes & tumors.  Turned out there were 4 FOUR! masses: 1 DCIS, 1 LCIS and 2 ILC (the trouble makers.)  I can't believe there was room for all that in my nearly A, saggy little breast.  The pathology described the breast overall as "unremarkable."  Parting is sweet sorrow - but in opposite way than Romeo meant it.  My surgeon=  awesome, globe trotting surgeon extraordinaire.  

I wasn't too crazy about the 1st med onc  - I think she might have been a having a midlife crisis.  She talked about my options for chemo or no chemo with as much weight and concern as if we were talking about whether or not I prefer cream of 2% in my coffee.  

By luck, the fellow who was assigned to me when I had Hodgkin's is now at a nearby hospital.  Not the same institutional authority as the big Cancer Center, but they are hooked into various research projects through Mayo.  And, he  is great at explaining recent research, various school of thought about the research, then giving me a personal recommendation with his reasons why.  He remembered me for the bad-old days of chemo so we reminisced about hand written notes and days when vomiting began before patients even arrived for infusions.  It is so pleasantly strange now - there are snacks, visitors, wireless networks, I can DRIVE myself to and from - in the bad days I could barely walk out the door without a wheel chair.  

Now, I am deciding about radiation.  Again, a nationally - world known rad onc.  And I love her ways.  Like my med onc, she reviews the research, puts it in context, applies it to me.  The big difference is that the med onc has this kind of photographic-memory style of recantation whereas the rad onc tells the research like  a real life story.    And she's concerned about me getting pregnant.  She's pleased to hear that I'm eating better, exercising. She cares about the mind-body connection.  

Another long story...see next post.  Bottom line is that when I asked her if she would recommend rads for me she pause and said "probably not."  I have a week or so to decide.