Cancer has a very distinctly different appearance than normal breast tissue. While it takes at least a couple of million cancer cells to make a tumor or lesion big enough to see with the naked eye, once it has reached that size it will definitely look different. If your surgeon is experienced and has seen lots of cancer, she probably is capable of telling whether the tissue looked normal or not.
However, just because tissue looks normal, that doesn't necessarily mean there is no pre-cancer or cancer there, whereas a microscopic exam will tell if it's there or not. So, a surgeon may make a statement about what they saw, because that immediately gives patients something to go on , one way or the other - but that is why they say to wait for the pathology results to know for sure what the situation is.
The fact that she didn't see anything abnormal, is however, STILL really goods news. It means that even if they find cancer cells when they do the path exam, because it wasn't big enought to form a tumor or lesion, it would most likely indicate a very early cancer. The earlier we can catch cancer , the better the chances of totally eliminating it.
So it's ok to be doing a little bit of a happy dance right now, even though you still have to wait for the microscopic report. Were it me, I would be relieved that everything looked normal, and would be breathing a little easier while waiting for more news.
I hope that it is very good news for you.
Sincerely,
Tre