Cancer treatment is officially underway! I received a radioactive dye injection today. The surgeon will use the radioactivity as a guide for which lymph nodes need to be removed. It’ll be 1-4 of the nodes with the most radioactivity.
I was worried about it because I saw a couple YouTube videos where people were saying it was extremely painful. And it was, but only for about 15 seconds.
The medical staff explained the procedure thoroughly. They had me identify the cancerous breast for them (right). They know which one it is but they’re going to keep asking me so they’re absolutely sure it’s the correct one. The doc wrote her initials on my breast with a permanent marker as a way of indicating the correct side. No one has ever signed my boob before. It was an interesting experience! 😆
All my research indicated the injection would be near the tumor. That actually wasn’t the case, though. The injection was made near the areola and instead of injecting it deep into my breast, it was injected with the needle parallel to the skin. The fluid was injected just under the skin, such that I had a bump of fluid there for a bit.
The technologist was so lovely. She held my hand through it and told me to squeeze her hand as hard as I wanted and reassured me that it wouldn’t hurt her. I really appreciated having a hand to hold, but I didn’t squeeze because, despite her continued reassurance, I didn’t want to hurt her. 😆
The injection was done intentionally quite slowly compared to a typical injection. And it burned quite badly. I slightly doubled over in pain but I didn’t want to move too much with a before in me. I took deep breaths and that helped. In addition to the dye, the injection contained a numbing agent, which helped the pain subside within about 15 seconds. It continued to hurt a little when I used my right arm for maybe another 30 minutes or so. But it’s fine now.
So, hopefully tomorrow the sentinel lymph nodes will light up like a Christmas tree.
I’m off to bed. We’re getting up at 4:15 AM because we’re due at the surgical center at 6 AM. Surgery is scheduled for 7:30 AM. I’ll update y’all when I can thereafter.
10.5 hours until surgery. 😬