hi and thank you

Hi Arrow, When I read your post, I thought back six months to when I was newly diagnosed but pre-surgery, when it seemed that the only control I had against overwhelming fear and imminent death was to learn enough about breast cancer and surgery and pathology and treatment options to be able to understand enough to be able to make good decisions that would determine things I had not yet even heard of. I did learn  on the Susan Komen page that mastectomy and lumpectomy-with-radiation  have the same survival rate, but only because there is a higher rate of recurrences with the appropriate extra surgery and treatment, and that the majority of lumpectomy patients keep their breasts and don't have to deal with recurrences, but some do. And I learnt that if a surgeon fails to get clear margins around the tumor  it's not because they miscalculated or were not competent, it's because the the tumor had grown through the natural physical boundaries of what was removed eg the membrane around the breast tissue, (So a second op may be needed to get clear margins in such cases). But I never managed to get enough information to fully understand what was happening, and oten felt I was making decisions in the dark. And I did learn this is normal, and that we all muddle through and alternate between despairing and celebrating and trying to do deals with God or the devil or whatever.

It seems to me you have made a great start lining up a top breast surgeon and a very good hospital for surgery, and found support groups. There is so much you cannot organise until after your operation and after your pathology results are ready about a week after your op.

I would like to pass on to you three useful bits of wisdom came my way from fellow travelers, which I found really useful  and maybe you will too. The first is that often, whenever you think you know what is going to happen next or where you stand now, it is likely to change. So the most important thing is to be ready to roll with the punches, the surprises, the shocks, the disappoinments and also the unexpected opportunities that suddenly appear. Let reality be reality.  The second is that you have more strength and more resilience and more capacities of all kinds within you than you have ever imagined, and that you can and will get through this, and it will be easiest to do so if you stay real and don't pretend to be positive when you feel negative just don't let yourself get stuck there. You are doing this now, seeing how angry and scared and all the rest you are instead of pretending. And the third is that you have to remember to breathe and let your breath hold you together, to remember to walk for half an hour everyday that you possibly  can so your body remember the rhythms of life and movement, and to remember be open to receive the love and companionship that is yours from the rest of us walking tour own breast cancer journeys along side of you.