Kenworthy, 10-29-79
My surgery was Tuesday and I repeated that about 17 times. I went in at 9:45am and they did a wire localization where they shoot you up with lidocaine and then insert a wire to the marker that was placed during the biopsy using ultrasound. While they were doing that, I asked them to measure and Wilma was still 1.3cm. This means that the chemo only shrunk it by about half so no PCR. 🙁 The radiologist had the technician change a setting and three blue areas right around Wilma showed up and she had her turn the setting back off.
Once the wire was in place, a tech from nuclear medicine came and injected dye for the sentinel node biopsy. The radiologist then wanted me to have a mammogram based on the ultrasound. Once I did that, they took me over to the surgery center. More fun ensued when my nurse couldn't get my port after two tries so she tried my wrist because she couldn't find anything else on the right side and couldn't use the left arm. That didn't work so she called another nurse to try my port and that failed two more times. 🙄 By then, the anaesthesiologist and my surgeon were there and told them they would handle it in the OR.
When they took me in, the anesthesiologist gave me some laughing gas to take the edge off he said and my surgeon got it in the first time thankfully. I remember him saying that it would take a little longer since it was going through my port and then I was out. It took me a little longer to wake up, but they gave me a patch in pre-op so at least I wasn't nauseous this time around. They brought me back to my room and Rhys got me dressed and out of there. Mom was there and stopped to grab my new favorite, Chicken Salad Chick, on the way back to the house.
I am sore and tired from the pain meds, but otherwise good. I've been cuddled up on the couch most of the week with this fancy quilt my Mom made and Kathy quilted. ❤️ I got my pathology report back Thursday afternoon and wanted to confirm what I thought I was reading before I said anything. Yesterday afternoon, I talked to my Nurse Navigator and she said I was interpreting it correctly. My surgeon took more than originally intended (probably for the areas I saw in the ultrasound that prompted the mammogram), but got clear margins. They took two lymph nodes, both negative, and everything indicates that I am cancer-free! 😁Rhys has been taking good care of me, refilling my ice pack, and bringing me meds and food so I don't have to move around a lot. Staci brought dinner Thursday so he got out of cooking two nights this week. 🙂
I have my follow-up appointment on the 25th when they go over the whole report and set me up with the radiation oncologist. There's a four week timeframe to heal from surgery before I can't start radiation, so sometime around August 9th. She said I'll have radiation five days a week for four to seven weeks. Then I'll just have immunotherapy every three weeks for a year and scans to make sure there's no recurrence. Bottom line: Wilma messed with the wrong girl and got her ass handed to her.
TODAY'S SILVER LINING: I got to spend the day with my girls! I didn't do much and definitely wasn't up to bringing all my scrapbooking stuff, but it was nice to see them and just hang out. I wasn't sure that I was going to feel up to it, but thankful that I was. ❤️