I accompanied Mom to Dr. Santiago Zamudio's office on Wednesday, August 8th. This was a follow-up to her lumpectomy surgery on Friday, August 3rd. Dr. Z is an older Peruvian gentleman with a gentle laid-back manner. Note: he is a surgeon, not an oncologist. At the bottom of this post I have his particulars.
Mom has been having extremely high BP in spite of the allopathic medication and holistic supplements she has been taking. During this visit her BP was 168/93 and her heartrate was 54. The nurse commented on the high BP and asked her if she was nervous about seeing the doctor.
Dr. Z comments: The area around the tumor was clear. They took a biopsy sample of 8 lymph nodes and found cancerous tumors in 2 of them, which he felt good about. The technical terms was classification T1 for the tumor itself being on the smaller side, and N1 for fewer than 2 nodes having cancer. The prognostic markers had not yet been determined - from what I understand this indicates the hormonal imbalance linked to this cancer.
I asked Dr. Z if all this might indicate that the cancer had been caught early. He responded that he could not answer that since it takes about 5 years for a tumor to grow from 1 cell to about 1 cm.
He checked her drain (on the side of her left breast after the lumpectomy) and felt that it could not yet be removed but needed to drain a little longer. He also asked her to "milk" it to have it drain faster. She would need to come in again next week to have it removed, although if it had drained substantially by Thursday afternoon he might be able to remove it on Friday morning. (Note: I did take Mom to the hospital on Roscoe Blvd. on Friday morning to have him see about removing the drain but because of a series of miscommunications with the nursing staff, we did not end up seeing him. At this point, she will go to his office next week to have it removed.)
He told her that it would not be a problem for her to shower now (she hadn't since Friday) and to drive on her own (she hadn't been because of the pain after the surgery and the pain medication could have made her drowsy).
His recommendations to Mom were that after the wound has healed she should see an oncologist. He also felt that if she went through the proper steps she should be able to handle it.
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Dr. Z's contact info:
Dr. Santiago Zamudio, M.D. - General and Vascular Surgery
14624 Sherman Way, Suite 101, Van Nuys, CA 91405, 818.781.0644
1830 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 124, L.A., CA 90006, 213.637.9080
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