Week 5: The Huntsman Cancer Institute

The first week of March my classes finished up. March 1 was my last night with my Butte Geometry class. Because it was such an insane & exhausting week, I was seriously worried about being able to survive the drive to Butte. A dear friend (one of the first people I met when I moved to Dillon 33 years ago) Carolyn Bott, drove me to Butte so I could grade papers as she drove. Then she hung around for 4 hours to drive me back. Now that's a true friend! Thank you Carolyn! It was so hard to say goodbye to my Butte students. They are such a great group. They even had flowers and a card for me. I was very touched by that. Then Wednesday the 3rd I gave my Final Test to my Dillon Number Theory class. Western found another teacher to take my Block 7 Algebra class, and Dave Cypher, my mentor teacher who I student taught high school Geometry with, graciously agreed to take over my Butte class for the 2nd half of the semester. So I am officially unemployed... but only temporarily.

My husband Rich and I went to Salt Lake for my surgical consult at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital on March 9. I met with 2 doctors who would be involved in my surgery. Dr. Lee Nuemayer is a professor of breast surgery at the University of Utah. So when she comes in, she brings an entourage of student doctors, residents, interns, etc. She talked to me about surgical options, and it was decided that I was a candidate for the skin-saving mastectomy, which means that all of the breast tissue is removed, but the skin and nipple are saved. That is somewhat new, because mastectomy's used to always mean losing the nipple too.

Next came the Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Jay Agarwal, and his whole entourage of student doctors. He discussed all of the possible options for breast reconstruction. Vickie, "my" breast health nurse at Huntsman, had already shown me photos of patients who had had no reconstruction done, as well as results from other types of reconstruction. I must admit that the cases where no reconstruction was done looked so strange with a breast on one side, and nothing on the other. Not very appealing! She then explained there is another method where they take skin & fat from the belly to build a new breast. That one didn't appeal to me at all. I know, you get a tummy tuck out of the deal, but seeing the incision from hip bone to hip bone didn't get me excited a bit! Then there's the procedure where they take some muscle and skin from your back, below the shoulder blade, swing it around under the arm & attach it to the chest so blood vessels get going - then later build a breast out of that - are you kidding? That one fell off my list immediately. Then the one they call the more "simple" reconstruction involves putting an expander under the muscle & skin after the masectomy. Then saline is injected into the expander every few weeks to stretch the muscle & skin, in preparation for the final reconstruction surgery where the expander is removed, and an implant is put in. ( I guess for those girls wanting the DD look, it's going to take a lot of saline injections!)

Wow. I hated all of the options. Such crummy choices all the way around. I was pretty well debating between no reconstruction, or the expander/implant method. I had talked to a number of people who told me that although the expander/implant route stinks, after it's all said & done, I'd probably be glad I did it. I sure hope so, cause after talking to Dr. Agarwal I decided I'd go that route. Later that day I had to go have an MRI to look for any other little tumors that might be kicking around, particularly in the other breast (double mastectomy, anyone?). Anyone who has had an MRI knows that's kind of an interesting experience. I wasn't finished with that until almost 7 pm. Another very long day!