On a positive note...

We met with my surgeon today to discuss my pathology report (yes, we had already spoken with my oncologist but we wanted to hear what my surgeon had to say). We were supposed to meet with her this Friday, but they called and asked if I could come in today. My nerves were already a little wacky but we took the appointment because it was better than waiting until Friday to hear from my surgeon. Although my surgeon was telling us some of the same things as my oncologist (pretty much all the same things), she had a way of discussing with us that wasn't quite a life and death as my oncologist and had us leaving the appointment feeling so much more positive.  Yes, the size of the tumor in the breast was the same and yes, four lymph nodes were still affected. The difference was that when the pathology report was first done, only two lymph nodes were discovered. The second two had microscopic cancer cells in them. All the lymph nodes that had cancer had the cancer limited directly to the lymph nodes. No signs of any spreading were shown. I wish my oncologist could have explained thing to me this way instead of in statistics that were very scary. Fine, I know that  the stats are there and that they are real stats that have meaning to them. It was so hard to feel positive about the report though. My surgeon made us feel so much better. She told us that she got every bit of cancer in my breast and that the margins were really good (the space between the tumor and the extra breast tissue that she took). She also took all the lymph nodes and was happy that they hadn't spread outside the lymph nodes. We were a little concerned that the cancer cells may have spread but she assured us that they would have been microscopic and killed by the chemotherapy treatments. We left this appointment feeling much more positive...