The Diary: Cancer will not Win. Ch.3: Next Steps.

The MRI appointment came and went. It felt weird, I'd never had an MRI before, and as a first experience it was interesting.

I had been told that it was going to be loud, and it was, but I was given headphones and earplugs - and almost fell asleep! It was like the sound of an airplane, which always puts me to sleep, no matter how awake I am.

I laid face down, and it took about 20 minutes in total to get through the whole scan. They told me it usually takes about 7 days for the report to get sent through to my doctor -but since he had requested urgency it'd be prioritised.

It wasn't 7 days. My appointment was on the Thursday, and I had a call from the private rooms on the Monday requesting an appointment the next day. Super quick, right?

At the rooms, Dr Park called me in, and told me that the results showed the tumour as being roughly 35mm - bigger again than that of the last scans - and that he'd like to book me in for surgery the next week. I agreed, happily ready to get through this step. He explained that I'd need to come in beforehand for a pre-operative physio appointment to explain exercises that I'd need to do for recovery after the fact, and take a form to the hospital so that they knew I was having the surgery done there.

It was a quick in and out appointment, the rooms called up and made all the appointments required for me. They put me in for 7am to get a hook wire - they explained that this would assist in locating where to go as it was inserted under ultrasound guidance - and a lymphosintigram (I'll explain this one shortly) that morning before surgery.

They then scheduled the post op appointment for the 30th of December. Something I'm eager to attend as I write this - it's still a few days away.

After all of the appointments were scheduled, fees were paid, and I was on my way, ready for my next lot of appointments. Excited to get this awful thing removed from my body.

At the pre op physio appointment, I was measured, weighed, and shown how to move my arm after the operation. The physio showed me several exercises that I should be doing - for 2 YEARS after the operation. They have recommended recovery exercises on websites set up to help people like me - people with breast cancer.

She also showed me what type of supportive bras I should be wearing for the week after the fact - luckily, the hospital does provide that for you at least - and I was given a pillow to sit under my arm, to make sure I wasn't leaning on the incisions.

I was told that they would make incisions under my breast, and close to my armpit, both to remove the tumour and to perform what's called a "sentinel node biopsy".

This essentially means that the surgeon took a cluster of lymph nodes from my armpit - this is where the lymphosintigram came into play.

The lymphosintigram is a procedure where they inject some radioactive dye into the space around the tumour - and trace where the dye goes. The find the closest node to the tumour, you're left under the "camera" that shows on the screen where the dye traces back to, identifying the closest node.

The reason for this is that the surgeon needs to remove the lymph nodes to determine whether the cancer has a possibility to have spread throughout the body. Sounds scary, right?

After the pre op physio, all that was left was to go to work, then the next day was surgery day.

Next: Ch.4: Surgery