It's me again.

Thanks to so many people who have made such loving and positive comments on both this blog and Mark's or my Facebook page. I know there are some of you out there who read this blog and/or the Facebook posts who absolutely have gone through worse than I'm going through. I know you also received hundreds of loving comments, cards, etc. Until you have gone through something like it, though, it's nearly impossible to understand how important these comments are. They lift my spirits and put me in a much better frame of mind. I missed it for these past two days, but now I'm back online!

Thursday was a really early morning. We were asked to arrive at outpatient surgery (even though I knew I would be an inpatient) at 5:45 a.m. After checking in promptly, we were told that I wasn't scheduled to go to nuclear medicine until 7 a.m. when they opened, but that I should remain in the outpatient area waiting for someone to come take me back and get me ready. So we sat...and sat...and sat some more. After 90 minutes, at 7:15 a.m. I went back to the girl who checked me in and reminded her that I was still here in outpatient, but that I was now late for nuclear medicine. Ooops!! She called nuclear; they came and got me. Once I was back there, the nuclear medicine woman said she had called up front several times to see if I was there, but no one seemed to know. OY! I wasn't really getting good vibes at that point.

She injected me in the left breast twice with the nuclear dye, then I had to wait 45 minutes for it to percolate up the lymph nodes. After waiting, I went back into the machine that seemed like a CT machine or MRI, although she said it was neither of those. I had to lay still with my left arm over my head for 40 minutes as they took four 10-minute pictures. Sadly the sentinel nodes did not show up. In fact no nodes showed up. She said it was because the original lump had been gone for two months and it "interrupted the train." She also assured me that the surgeon would have a device that looked like an electric toothbrush, but acted like a Geiger counter, to locate the nodes during surgery. Ooops! That didn't work either. So when I was conscious again, they told me they took all the axillary lymph nodes and left a drain sutured to my side. OY! I wasn't happy about that either.

I chose partial mastectomy with radiation and sentinel node biopsy instead of complete mastectomy without radiation because I did not want to have a drain and I did not want to lose all the nodes and I wanted to keep my risk of arm lymphodema to a minimum. Bummer. I got the drain and all the nodes out, the very highest possible risk of lymphodema, and still have to do the radiation because of the partial. Now I'm sort of wishing I just had the whole mastectomy. Hindsight. Gotta love it.

I had not stayed overnight in a hospital since my gall bladder surgery back in 1988. Wow, I had forgotten how crazy it is there all the time. It was very hard to sleep with people trooping in and out all night to draw blood, set another IV, or help me up to the bathroom. It really is easier to be at home, even if I did have to sleep sitting up in a chair. I was given that advice by several women who had mastectomies. They warned me that it would hurt A LOT to get out of a regular bed, so it's better to sit up. Since I also have the ventral hernia repair again, my abdomen is weak and painful right now. That also makes it hard to get up and down out of a bed or a chair.

My sister Cindy came to the hospital Thursday night and stayed for a few hours. I really appreciated that. She had been out of town and came right over from BWI. Mark was wonderful, as always, and learned to clean the drain. I can barely see it, let alone manipulate it to empty it. The nurses showed him several times how to empty it and write down how much lymph fluid is in it. I have to bring that record with me to the surgeon's follow-up appointment at the end of next week. Depending on the amount and color of it, he will decide if it comes out in one week or two weeks. Did I mention that I did NOT WANT this drain. UGH.

The physical therapist also came to give me a big packet of exercises to do to regain the full use of my left arm and lots of instructions on how to minimize the risk of lymphodema. I will have to get that packet out today and start the exercises. Although not everyone gets lymphodema, and it seems like the doctors aren't even sure why some women do and some women don't get it, it is still prudent to follow the advice to minimize that risk. There is no cure; there is only managing it or trying to avoid it all together. There will be no more professional manicures and probably no more hot tubbing. HUGE BUMMER for me.

I also have to make an appointment with the radiation oncologist and the regular oncologist for about two weeks from now. The radiation is a given at this point and can't start until I'm completely healed up from the surgery. It will be every day for six weeks. My regular surgeon will have the pathology report back by the time I see him at the end of next week. I should know then whether or not I'll need chemo or some kind of oral meds, or God Forbid, even more surgery. In any case, I'm supposed to make an appointment with the regular oncologist for about two weeks from now also just in case.

Despite "losing" me in the outpatient waiting area, we were generally very impressed with St. Agnes Hospital. Everyone was kind and caring. I felt that the nurses and the med techs were extremely responsive. If I pushed the call button, they answered and came right away. It was pretty impressive.

From Thursday morning when we left, until this morning sitting here typing, seems like an eternity. I feel like I lost several days, but it really feels good to be back at Cindy's house. I have oral pain meds, anti-nausea med, and stool softeners (oh joy) to last several weeks. I will do what everyone says to do: take the pain meds promptly, stay on top of the pain, rest more than you think you need to, lift NOTHING. I'll be all right. I'm just in the holding pattern now waiting for the pathology reports.

I suspect that any blogs I might write in the next few days will be very boring. I might not write anything unless I think of something because, honestly, I won't be doing anything too interesting except resting!