Surgery Day

Surgery Day is over!

The monster is gone!

Yesterday morning I woke up scared.  So scared.  It is the day that means this is all really happening. Jim is so supportive.  Lots of hugs.  The stats of the day go as follows:
8:00 - Jim drives me in.
9:30 I get checked in. We are guided to our "room" that will act as our home base for the day. I change into surgery clothes.
11:00 am - dye injection and lymph node testing
12:00 - guided wire localization. A wire is placed inside my breast which will assist the surgeon in quickly finding the area to be removed.
3:00  - Off to surgery for the removal of the cancer and insertion of the port that will be used for the chemo treatments.
Sometime around 6:30 we leave

Thoughts for the day:

Jim is wonderful.  He holds my hand the entire way into the city and keeps me laughing all day.  He tells me jokes, he makes fun of my outfit, he sings silly songs with me.  He takes one of the latex gloves out of the box and blows it up like a balloon.  When the nurses leave he takes the little finger "heart rate checker" and checks both of our heartbeats and oxygen levels.  He has something going on with his eye and yet his concern is for me.  I am worried about his eye but every time I ask how his eye is he blows me off. 

I don't realize how much I am leaning on him until I have to get wheeled away for all of these procedures.  I cry immediately each time.  i know I have to be strong but i'm not sure how strong I could actually be without him.  When he is not around I think about how much I love him and how strong he is being for me.  When I was laying getting my lymph node test I was trying to think of one memory to focus on with Jim.  My favorite.  I realized I had too many "favorite" moments with him.  So instead of one memory to focus on, I had a video clip of many.  It was quite wonderful

Chuck Clifford - the other story to our day.  Chuck comes to the hospital to wait with Jim while I was in surgery.  However, surgery didn't happen when it was supposed to so Chuck was able to come wait with us in our room.  My love poured out for both of them.  Chuck was there for Jim but ended up being there for both of us.  We talked about everything and laughed about everything.  More importantly, he laughed at my drug induced jokes and silliness when I got out of surgery. 

When the doctor comes to talk to us, Chucks heads to the waiting room.  The Dr. Limpert talks to us about the procedure and next steps.  After this, my oncologist , Dr. Huser will take over.  He will be the one making the decisions.  Dr.  Limpert will still have a little influence but its basically his call  At this point I realize our Africa trip may be in jeopardy.  I have to keep reminding myself that my health is much more important.  However, I still feel so guilty that I am affecting Jim so much. I want to scream.

Off to surgery. The next thing I remember waking up and seeing Jim and Chuck. And I was very happy and giggly. I remember saying hello to every person in the hall as the passed my room. I think we were all singing songs also. Until the drugs wore off and the nausea set in. I really am trying to minimize the amount of medicine I put into my body but I finally agreed to take some anti-nausea medicine. It took a little bit to work but once it did I was ready to head home. I'm glad I had the nurse give me the medicine.

Jim got me home safe and sound. He was exhausted and I felt so bad for him. He is so good to me. He made the sofa bed in the living room for me so I could toss and turn and stay comfortable. I love this man so much.

I will have three new scars. One for the cancer removal, one under my arm for the lymph node removal for testing and one for the port insertion. 

This morning, I read more of my Breast Cancer Treatment Handbook.  I realize that my lymph nodes could have cancer and if they do, cancer cells could be elsewhere in my body.  That terrifies me.  I won't know the results until next week unfortunately.

I go in to Jim and take him his coffee.  Something I absolutely love doing.  He helps me take my shirt off so he can look at my incisions.  After he sees them I go into the bathroom to look at them.  I have a little meltdown.  I look like a monster.  The one under my arm is the worst.  Jim reminds me that I am a fast healer, I still have both breasts and I am going to be fine.

Everything is so scary.  I think of David.  And Tiffany.  And my two beautiful grandchildren. 

I think about how much I absolutely love life and I am NOT ready to end that.  I know that it is way too early to even think things like that but I can't help it.  I have so much more living to do.

Enough for now.