A Little Perspective

Last night I cried and cried and cried.  I sat in front of the tv from about 6 until 10:30.  The Charlie Brown Valentine Specials were on.  That provided some good distraction.  I did sleep really well, and we had a really nice family day today, so tonight I have a little perspective.

Here is what we learned.  I will go back to Mayo on Feb.25 to meet with a radiation oncologist.  He will decide if I need radiation on my lymph nodes.  Apparently, there is an 80% chance that the chemo did not kill any cancer cells that might be lurking in the lymph nodes.  If the Dr. decides I need radiation, it will happen between two surgeries.  The first surgery is scheduled for Monday, March 16th.  That will be the mastectomy.  The plastic surgeon will then place expanders under the skin and above the muscle.  If he is unable to do it this way because the skin is not healthy or thick enough, then he will put the expanders under the muscle. Doing it this way I think will make the DIEP procedure either harder or impossible.

I will be in the hospital overnight.  If I have to have radiation, it will take place after I have healed from this surgery.  Having the BRCA-1 gene means they can't radiate breast tissue, but they can radiate lymph nodes with no risk.  If I do radiation, I should be able to do it here at Hall-Perrine.  Hopefully they won't want me to do it up at Mayo.  It is 6 weeks, everyday.

If I have radiation, they want to wait 6-9 months before finishing reconstruction.  That news was a huge bummer.  Please pray that radiation will not be necessary.  I definitely want to do whatever I need to to keep the cancer from returning, but I really would love to skip the radiation part. :)

If I don't have radiation, we can do the rest of the reconstruction on a much quicker time frame.  A lot of things also depend on the pathology of the breast tissue when they remove it.  A pathologist will examine it during surgery to make sure the Dr. doesn't need to remove more lymph nodes, and he will also examine it much more closely after surgery.

Sometime between these surgeries I will have a hysterectomy.  I will hopefully be able to do that here in town with my gynecologist.  We haven't even started talking about that.

Other things that are upsetting- I will lose all feeling from under my arms and all the way across my chest.  I can't really even imagine that.  I will have several drains to deal with for at least a week, probably two, at home.  They told me sleeping will be very difficult and uncomfortable.  The biggest bummer- it looks like we still have about a year to go before we are done with this.  Who would have imagined that such a little thing- a 2 cm tumor- could cause so much anguish?

There are also some good things.  I will be back at school full time starting Monday.  I can't wait to get back to all my classes.  I really miss my kids. My surgery is one week before spring break, so I have plenty of time to recover without missing too much more school.  They want me up and around and doing things.  I just can't lift anything over 10 pounds.

I think that basically covers everything.  Feel free to ask if you want to know more.  I am still absolutely devastated about losing my wedding ring.  It was very inexpensive, so at least we didn't lose a huge investment.  But I really, really loved my little ring.   Losing it on top of all the bad, unexpected, and confusing news made Friday really awful.  But, as my dear, wise Father reminded me, every day is a good day, just some are better than others.  That is true, because we have a Heavenly Father who loves us more than we could possibly imagine and He is taking care of us always.  He can handle my tears and understands my grief.  He is already there, and he is bringing me along according to His plan and His timing.  Praise Him for that assurance!