Patricia learned that her breast will not look the same after a lumpectomy.
Transcript
The other thing he said to me which is really, I think important for women to understand is, he said “Don’t think of this as a lumpectomy. Don’t call it a lumpectomy. People will call it that, it’s not. In our terms this is a partial mastectomy because what will happen to your breast surgically and what you will have left is not going to look like the other one or like it did before, you need to be prepared for that.” He was quite right. It didn’t, but it’s a day surgery, you come home. I think my friends were more, probably, worried about me than I was but there’s always that worry in the back of your mind. Now I have to wait 5 business days for the report to come in. Well when it came in it was the lymph nodes were clear and the margins were clear as far as they could tell. So that was good news.
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- Messages to others – PatriciaPatricia sums up several things that could be helpful.
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- Coping strategies – PatriciaPatricia had returned to her church prior to her diagnosis. This decision proved to be helpful in dealing with her illness.
- Perspectives on treatment pathways – PatriciaPatients do have the right to refuse treatment and Patricia thinks that it is important for the health professional to provide the patient with all the information they need to decide.
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- Troubling long-term effects of treatment – PatriciaPatricia described the episodes of extreme fatigue she continued to experience and explained how these episodes were different from normal tiredness.