Day 164 - Details

As promised, here are more details from yesterday.  I had to be at the hospital at 7:00am so we knew that it was going to be an early morning for all.  Henry actually woke up at 5:30, which was a good thing yesterday.  He came in bed with us for a little while, and I am so glad that I got to start such a big day with snuggles from my sweet boy.

Mike and Henry dropped me off at the hospital, went for a quick bite of breakfast, and Mike came back after taking Henry to school.  Henry's school does not open until 7:00 so we could not take him before I had to be at the hospital.

Once I got into my pre-op room and got somewhat settled, the nurse came in to start an IV, and I was on my way for my two pre-surgical procedures.  They took me to the nuclear lab first to get my radioactive injection.  Let me just tell you, the nuclear lab was the biggest disappointment of the day. I expected it to be kind of cool-looking given its name.  Maybe it was all glass, maybe it required a fingerprint or retina scan to get into the lab.  Maybe it would look like something from a movie set. Nada.  Zip.  It was a regular old hospital wing with no special security or anything.  Boring.

In the lab, they injected a radioactive isotope into my left breast.  This radioactive material traveled to the lymph nodes that drain the tumor area and were visible to my surgeon during the operation after he injected a blue dye into the same area.  The blue dye adhered to the radioactive material so that the surgeon knew which lymph nodes were my sentinel nodes because they turned blue.

After the letdown that was the nuclear lab, I had to go to mammography to have a wire placed into the tumor bed so that my surgeon knew exactly where to cut.  The radiologist explained to me that she would numb the area then place the wire under "light" compression during a mammogram.  Suffice it to say that I would hate to experience her definition of "heavy" compression.  I was compressed for quite a while while the wire was placed, but they were able to place it in the correct area on the first try.  Good.

Post-mammogram/wire placement, I was taken back up to my pre-op room where Mike was waiting for me.  He had managed to put a few chairs together and get somewhat comfy while waiting for me. The British Open was on so he was pretty content.

We waited for about an hour before the actual surgery got underway so that I could have some IV fluids.  The anesthesiologist came in and discussed what would happen anesthesia-wise.  It was nothing that I was not expecting, but I am glad that he ran through everything.  I like this anesthesiologist a lot.  I had him when I got my port put in so requested him for yesterday.  Hot tip - hospitals honor special requests like this if you just ask.

My surgeon came in to talk to us right before they wheeled me out.  He just gave us a rundown of the procedure, marked the area where he would be operating with a marker (for real), told Mike he would call him after, and went out to the nurses station and told them that all was a go!

Two OR nurses came in and asked me a few more questions, the anesthesiologist gave me some medicine to make me feel nice and woozy, Mike gave me a hug and a kiss, and we were out of there. Last thing I remember is getting onto the table in the OR then waking up in recovery.

In recovery, I woke up with some pretty significant pain which I reported immediately.  The nurse gave me some liquid Dilaudid for pain through my IV, and I think that I had a mild allergic reaction to it.  I started to itch like crazy all over so she called the anesthesologist who instructed her to give me some Benadryl.  The Benadryl delayed my wake up by a few minutes, but it helped with the itching so it was worth it.  My surgeon came by briefly and said that things went well but did not give me any details because I would not have remembered them.

I asked the recovery nurse if I had any surgical drains, and she said no!  Happy days.  Drains are such a pain.  They hang down and have to be emptied every few hours.  I had them after a totally unrelated surgery several years ago and am so glad that I do not have them again.  Apparently I was very concerned about the drains because the recovery room nurse said to Mike "she's asked 3 times if she has drains."  Ew.  Surely she is used to people not remembering things as they wake up from surgery.

Once I was awake enough, Mike helped me get dressed, and a wheelchair came up to take me down to my chariot.  The hospital offers complimentary valet parking which is awfully handy when leaving after surgery.  They pulled the car right up to the front door, and we were on our way.

As I said yesterday, all we know so far is that the surgeon got clear margins around the tumor area.  This means that he excised enough of the tumor bed so that normal tissue is all that showed around the edges.  Had he not gotten clear margins, he would have gone back in to cut out more and/or we would have had to discuss more surgery at a later date.  Thankfully that did not happen.  He also only removed 3 lymph nodes which is also a good thing.  He expected to have to remove between 1-6, and he said that it would depend on my particular anatomy.  I had 3 sentinel nodes for that particular area so they came out.

We expect to have the pathology back on Tuesday, and my surgeon will call me if it comes in.  If it does not come in by Tuesday, I'll have to wait until I see him for a follow up appointment on Thursday as he operates on Wednesdays (and Fridays). I am feeling very optimistic about what the pathology will show and am ok with waiting until Thursday if necessary.  I reserve the right to change my mind on feeling ok about waiting at any time though.

I was very sleepy yesterday afternoon and could not stay awake for more than 30 minutes at a time though I did not sleep terribly well last night.  It was hard to get comfortable.  I will take it very easy today and will probably spend most of the day in bed.  I am still on prescription pain medicine which hits pretty hard so I can't do much.  I may try to switch over to regular old Advil for pain tomorrow but will play that by ear.

As my oncologist said earlier in the week, I am considered to be cancer free as of yesterday.  Cancer free.  What beautiful words.