More Cutting

Dr. Cole said that he needs to remove an elliptical piece of skin at the scar site. This is to ensure that enough of the flesh around the tumor is gone. They have specific protocol for the amount of margin they need based on certain pathological information that they don't know until after they examine the tumor. All Dr. Cole could tell me was that the pathologist changed his mind about how aggressive one of my tumors was. Because of this, he now needs to take more margin and the only margin left is the skin. It is still considered a stage 1 cancer. I need more information so I am requesting the pathologist's reports. What made him change his mind and when?

This will be a simple procedure under local anesthesia with a sedative. It is outpatient and will occur at St. Jude Friday, 1/23 at 3:30pm. Terry is taking me. No grafting or drain is needed.

Dr. Dolkar's office said to schedule an appointment in 2 weeks to begin radiation (pending Oncotype). She's not sure she can use the same marks that she made on Monday so I may have to go through that again.

That's it for now.