Not so special.

My status as special cancer patient was officially terminated yesterday when, while waiting for my oncologist to come in the room, I heard her down the hall ask the aide "Is there a baby in there?" She then came in and said, "Where's the baby?? I know, I'm a bad doctor, yeah yeah how are you? cancer, blah blah, whatever, where's the baby??" I laughed and told her baby was waiting in the lobby. And then I said, "ahh, yes, I'm no longer the special cancer patient am I?" Oh well. My OB had already gone out to the lobby to see her that morning, and my oncologist followed me out that afternoon. She is as much a product of their hard work and concern as mine. Well, maybe not as much, but they certainly all felt a great stake in her good outcome and are so happy that she is absolutely perfect and has no ill effects.

Lots of follow up appointments yesterday. OB follow up went fine. First follow up to mastectomy surgery went fine, had the drains removed (thank goodness, but good lord those do not feel good coming out, in fact, it really hurts quite a bit), another follow up next week. Visit with my oncologist to go over pathology report from surgery and get chemo regimen started back up. Pathology report was good and okay. Everyone was totally happy that after the tissue was reviewed, it turned out the only tumor left was 0.4 cm. That was from two large tumors that totalled about 4 cm of tumor. That was it. When she said that, for a split second I said son of a bitch, I didn't really have to have a mastectomy and go through all of this? But then my rationale took over. I did need one. The way my cancer was so aggressive and grew so big so fast, it truly was the best option. Plus they did find a few pre-cancerous cells so I likely would have had to have to the surgery eventually anyway. So the chemo worked great on the two large primary tumors. The okay/not so great but it is what it is news was that of the 10 lymph nodes I had removed, 5 of them were positive for cancer. And that was after chemo. So chemo certainly shrunk them, but it's not the best of news that so many lymph nodes were effected, it's just what happened and what we are working with. So this chemo coming up next week now just needs to concentrate on the small lymph node in my neck that has already shrunk (send good vibes that it attacks it once and for all and just kills it) and any cells that had sloughed off of the lymph nodes and are possibly traveling around. Kill kill kill those few cells that are left. And then on to radiation that will zap those areas and hopefully terminate those cells.

This surgery was no joke. It has knocked me on my ass. It's the first time during this whole process that my sails have collapsed a little bit. Granted I did have two pretty big surgeries in less than a month.  My arm is still pretty useless. The nerves are coming back so at times I have areas of skin that feel like sandpaper rubbing on a sunburn and there's a place deep in my armpit that hurts so bad if I move a certain way it takes my breath away. Mornings are absolutely not fun because what little range of motion I have stiffens up overnight. So I'm just praying for the ability to deal with it, and to slowly get better. Could use all of your prayers and good thoughts for that too.