Having someone in your family who has had cancer and then finding a lump in your body can be utterly terrifying. Medical technology has improved substantially, so your chances of getting better are good, but it still doesn’t take away from the fear you might feel. Not all tumors are malignant, but it’s still scary to go under the knife.
An anonymous woman went viral on the internet after venting about her husband’s behavior during her lumpectomy. She opened up about how he went out to get lunch while she was in surgery, despite having given her the impression that he’d stay at the hospital. Read on for the full story.
It can mean the world to someone if their family and friends are at the hospital with them while they’re getting surgery
Image credits: DC Studio / freepik (not the actual photo)
An anonymous woman who had to get a tumor removed shared how her husband went off to do some chores while she was in the operating room
Image credits: wirestock_creators / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Anonymous
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers that affects women
Image credits: pixel-shot.com / freepik (not the actual photo)
According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, except for skin cancers. Breast cancer accounts for nearly a third (30%) of all new female cancers in the US each year.
It’s estimated that in 2024 there will have been around 311k new diagnoses of invasive breast cancer in women, 56.5k new cases of ductal carcinoma in situ, and 42.3k women may have lost their lives due to breast cancer.
This type of cancer mainly occurs in middle-aged and older women, with a median age at the time of diagnosis being 62 years old. As per the American Cancer Society, a very small number of women are diagnosed with breast cancer when they are younger than 45.
The average risk for American women to develop breast cancer at some point in their lives is around 13%. In recent years, incidence rates have increased by around 0.6% per year.
It really does matter whether your loved ones follow through with their promises
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Subjectively, there is a huge difference in whether your loved ones support you throughout your illness or are nowhere to be found. Their emotional support and physical presence can keep you optimistic and hopeful even when things seem very dark.
Unless your family or friends are doctors and surgeons, they probably won’t be able to directly assist with your surgery. However, just knowing that someone’s waiting near you while you’re in the operating room is helpful. Being there is what matters.
On top of that, there’s the person’s level of honesty to consider. If they go back on a promise they’ve made, you naturally start to wonder whether you can rely on them in the future.
In this particular case, the husband drove his wife to the hospital and he cared for her after the surgery. So, it shows that he does care about his partner’s welfare, to a large extent.
However, he was nowhere to be found when there were some serious complications during the surgery. If your spouse was off doing chores when they said they’d be by your side at the hospital, it could lead to a lot of unpleasant feelings. There are times when you have to postpone practical things like getting food and gas, even if objectively it sounds more ‘efficient.’
Accidents can and do happen during surgery, but you have to trust your doctor and their colleagues to do the best that they can. And the obvious needs to be said: it’s less scary to deal with those fringe medical situations when your soulmate is by your side, every step of the way.
Lumpectomies are smaller procedures than mastectomies, and they can be combined with radiation therapy
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According to Mayo Clinic, a lumpectomy (also known as an excisional biopsy, quadrantectomy, or breast-conserving surgery) is surgery to remove cancer or other abnormal tissue from your breast.
During the procedure, the surgeon also removes a small amount of healthy tissue around the problematic part to make sure that all of the abnormality is removed.
A lumpectomy, which is a treatment option for early-stage breast cancer, results in only a portion of the breast being removed, compared to a mastectomy where all of the breast tissue is removed.
Lumpectomies can be used to rule out a cancer diagnosis, but they can also be followed by radiation therapy to reduce the chances of the cancer returning.
The Cleveland Clinic explains that you may be a candidate for lumpectomy if the cancer affects only one area in your breast, the tumor is relatively small, your health allows for radiation therapy afterward, and you’ll have enough remaining tissue in your breast after the procedure to reshape it.
On the other hand, you may be advised to avoid a lumpectomy and go for other procedures if you have multiple tumors in one breast, have a large tumor, cancer has penetrated the breast skin or chest wall, if you have a family history of breast cancer, or if the type of breast cancer is considered fast-growing.
You’re not alone. Talk to your doctor about what procedures may be best for you. Get a second (or third, or fourth) opinion from other medical experts. Do some research on your own. Talk to some breast cancer survivors. Reach out to cancer charities and organizations for help.
What’s your take on the situation? How would you feel if your partner went off to do chores while you were in surgery? Have you or someone you care about beaten cancer? What advice would you give anyone who’s been diagnosed recently? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Later, the author interacted with some of her readers in the comments and shared more info
A lot of internet users thought that the woman was right to be upset with her spouse
Some people thought that both the husband and wife were in the wrong
A few internet users were much less understanding. Here’s how they saw everything
