Hi Julie,
My wife Linda had surgery after chemo, the interval was approx. 3 weeks. The reason for chemo first was to down-size the tumor (she was 3a BC). Linda had the same chemo regime as yourself and I recall the main reason for waiting is so your blood counts will stabilize to ensure no post-operative infections.
Just a side-bar: Linda was scheduled to have a masectomy but after pushing the surgeon to review the recent literature, we found that there has been no survival advantage to masectomy vs lumpectomy in the down-sizing scenario. As a result, she had a lumpectomy, (with clear margins). Unfortunately, Linda was wrongly diagosed as stage 3a when she was already stage 4. For her, the lumpectomy has turned into a psychological advantage in dealing ith stage 4 as a masectomy would have been just another blunder to deal with.
All the best,
Al
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