Oh, my gosh, I'm so miserable. In typical me fashion, I caught a cold after my surgery, and apparently, my body has switched its focus from cancer to snot production, 24/7. And I'm a freaking overachiever.
Apart from the crappy cold, I'm feeling pretty OK - still tired, and doing pretty much anything makes me break out in a cold sweat and want to lie down for a few hours, but I'm not having much pain at all.
I have two incision spots; one for the lumpectomy, which is closed with glue (?!), and one for the lymph node biopsy, which is closed with stitches. The glued spot is purple and pretty much painless. The stitches had a bandage over them which I removed on Saturday. I've replaced it with another big bandage to keep the irritation level as low as possible. Not much to see, and like I said, right now my biggest complaint is nonstop mucus production. Tough life.
We have an appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday (April 13) for a post-surgical check and to find out the results of the tests on the lymph nodes they removed.
They removed 5 nodes, and after the imaging done in Madison, I'm not too concerned that the cancer has spread. I could be surprised, of course, but since I'm prepared for chemotherapy and radiation anyway, I guess hearing that a few cells had gone rogue wouldn't be all that devastating.
With triple negative cancer, as the UW surgeon said, you pretty much just assume that some cancer cells are out there, and go after them with everything you've got. It's kind of comforting, in a weird way; I like the idea of nuking everything, just in case. (I bet I'll like it a lot less while I'm in the nuking process, but for now, it all gets to be some far-off scenario.)
I think we are going to make UW-Madison our "base" for care from here on out. I am hoping to be able to have some of the chemotherapy out of the FHN Cancer Center here in Freeport, but I have really liked the atmosphere up there. They are very "big picture," and I like that.
My surgeon, being a surgeon, has been really focused on his part of this process; cutting out the tumor. All indications are he did an awesome job! But my part of this isn't over. It's hardly started, and I'm trying to keep that in mind so I don't get all cocky.
It isn't the surgeon's job to remember what kind of cancer I have, so when the nurses and techs in the pre-OR room couldn't get an IV started and I joked that I see a chemo port in my very near future, he didn't have to get that (lame excuse for a) joke.
He mentioned it after the surgery, even - like, "was I supposed to be putting in a port?" We had talked about it in his office - he preferred not to do the lumpectomy and port placement in the same surgery, (no sense even taking the tiniest chance of spreading cancer cells around) and that was fine with me. I just know that it's coming.
My point - and I do have one - is that I'm a big enough baby that I want people (more specifically, medical professionals) around me who know where I'm at in this "journey" (ugh) and where I'm headed. I want to know as much as anyone else in the room (I am still me ...), but I don't want to have to drive. I just want to be a super-well-informed passenger. Who gets to have an opinion (OK, the last word) on everything that happens.
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