Seroma

If you don't know what a seroma is, then you can be on my team. I never heard this word before, but I've now looked it up. It's fluid building up in the area of the breast where tissue was removed. It's not a big deal, but usually happens shortly after the surgery and gets reabsorbed. If it doesn't get reabsorbed after a year or so, it might need to be aspirated if it is causing an infection, pain, or tenderness. It can also be a sign of arm lymphedema.

Yesterday at my oncology check up, the doctor told me my ultrasound from July 14 showed that I have a big seroma. Well, first of all, I HAVE arm lymphedema, so maybe this should not be a surprise. Second of all, why is she telling me in October? Why didn't she call me in July when she got that result? Not that I would have had time to do anything about it in the summer with so much travel and the wedding. My lymphedema therapist told me I had lymphedema in the breast as well, and she would do a lot of manual drainage on it that was very painful. I could tell the difference in how it felt when she was done, though. I do not do that sort of drainage on it myself, mostly because I would never hurt myself that much. I sometimes try to do a little bit on the breast, but I am wondering if the fluid has built up this much since I stopped my therapy.

On the other hand, the day I had the ultrasound was also the day I had my last appointment wiht the lymphedema therapist. She had been regularly draining the breast, so it's unlikely that the seroma showed up on that ultrasound if it was lymphedema related. Maybe it would look worse on an ultrasound NOW, after being out of therapy for so many months. My next ultrasound will be in January, so it will be interesting to see the difference.

So now she wants me to make an appointment with a surgeon to have it looked at and possibly aspirated. My prescription to see the surgeon says "abnormal ultrasound." It is causing me NO trouble, no pain, no infection, no tenderness, so I am not in favor of any procedures. Still, when we get back from our cruise, I will call the surgeon and go in for a consultation.

Other than that little surprise, my doctor visit seemed fine. She did not see anything else as a problem. Blood was drawn for tumor markers. Her policy is to call only if there is something wrong. There was nothing wrong with the blood at my last visit, so I am expecting it to be normal this time, too. I am scheduled to have another mammogram and ultrasound only on the left side in January and follow up with the doctor again in April. I am just a little disturbed that this seroma was there in July, but she did not call to tell me. I console myself with the thought that it means she is extremely UNconcerned about it.

I asked her about weight loss and Arimidex. She almost laughed out of her chair. She said no one loses weight on Arimidex; it definitely causes weight gain. Oh, goody.

Yesterday I was the only one of the seven women playing Mahj NOT to win at all. Just not my day, I guess. I'm going to be playing on Thursday and Saturday in Maryland with my other girlfriends. Maybe I'll have better luck there.

I'm very excited to be getting on the auto train today!! The storms coming here and going up the coast are going to be pretty severe. Half of Osceola County is expected to flood. Fortunately, I don't live in that county (although it's next door to us and where all my doctors are) and neither is the auto train. We have to drive through that county to get to the train station, though, so the sooner we do that the better. Then the train will be running a bit ahead of the storm all day and night. I'm so happy that we can relax on the train!

We are taking our laptops on this trip. I will be able to blog in our friend's homes when we are there, but not on the train or the cruise. I will definitely be able to blog until Sunday and then we board the Carnival Pride in Baltimore. Gonna be great!