Lymph nodes

[juldan]

Hi everyone......As the 10th nears I'm getting more nervous and so this question popped in my mind this morning...My gyn/onc told me that during the surgery she may see the need to remove a couple of lymph nodes, I guess if they look deseased....what does that mean in regards to recovery, Is removing lymph nodes a more severe surgery and harder to recover from?  One lady on this site said that as soon as she awoke she asked only one question, "Did you remove any lymph nodes?" and when the answear was no, she was relieved.  Am I missing something?
Please explain if you can...Tks.

[Nat2]

My Dr told me that they would do a frozen section biopsy during the surgery where they test a small part of the cyst to see if it is benign, borderline (abnormal cells that are not cancerous) or malignant.

If the test comes back malignant they will take some of your lymph nodes to do a biopsy to see how far the cancer has spread so that they can diagnose the stage of the disease.

My understanding is that this is standard practice with these types of surgery - 99% of cysts are benign and nothing to worry about but they have to explain to you exactly what they might do while you are under.  It would be no good to discover something was amiss and then to have to do another operation.

I was given the option to say what I didn't want to happen too, so I said if they found malignancy I did not want my other ovary removed.

Please don't worry about this as it is standard practice.  My cyst came back as borderline so they took my appendix but no lymph node biopsy.

[juldan]

Thanks for your comment...as my mass will most likely be malignant, as they believe this is recurrant GCT, and the Doc did say that she would do staging during the surgery (it wasn't done during my first surgery) does this mean that they will definatly remove some lymph nodes? and what does do for you on recovery, is it worse? thanks again...

[Nat2]

Hi,

Sorry I can't help you anymore than this - I'm sure someone else will come along with more information.  

Good luck - I hope it goes well.

Nat

[dian07]

Hello there...I had surgery last April to remove a tumor that turned out to be malignant....my gyn/onc did 20 biopsies and that included the removal of two lymph nodes...it didn't make one bit of difference to me....I certainly couldn't tell you  where the lymph nodes were located prior to surgery....yes, I know where they are, but there was no pain associated with their removal. You don't need to worry about that. I hope I answered your question.
Peace be with you.
dian

[nanik]

hi Juldan,I'm the one that said that about my lymph nodes when I woke up. As I understand what they told me my onc would take the lymph nodes if he felt he needed to , during my surgery. In my case from what they found at that time they did not need to take the lymph nodes. I am waiting for my final path report now.....my gyn/onc told me if they took the lymphs it would be slightly bigger incision (mine is a smile shape, would have been a bigger smile I guess!)but recovery wouldn't be much different at all.

Best wishes to you, hope to hear that you are doing well.

[juldan]

Thank-you so much .......your comments and experiences were very helpful in assuring me and making me less nervous....I think...!!!Thanks again