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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Post Op.

It's Saturday the 5th of February. Two days post surgery. I've waited until the narcotics have worn off to write. They told me not to sign any legal documents for at least 24 hours after surgery and I think blogging under the influence would be dangerous too.

It has been a record breaking cold spell in New Mexico this week. Many towns are out of natural gas and people are huddling under electric blankets and around electric heaters to keep warm. The governer has called a state of emergency. The morning of surgery I rolled out of bed at 6:00 am and it was 10 below 0 out. My sister had agreed to drive me to the hospital in her lovely SUV. When she went out her garage door was frozen shut. She did manage to get it open and Mom, Dad Heidi and I were on our way by 6:30. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get to my 7:30 appointment because the roads had been so bad. It only took us 1/2 hour to get to the radiology office for a pre-op procedure. The staff was just arriving when we showed up and they weren't really open yet but they let us come in and hang out in the waiting room until they were ready for business. After the procedure we all piled back into the car (with seat heaters that were like a day at the spa) and drove to the hospital. There was very little about the experience that was unpleasant. Drugs helped me not feel the pain of what I went through so what my impressions is that there were flocks of sweet gentle women fluttering around me asking questions, taking my blood pressure, patting me and reassuring me. One of them apparently injected happy medicine into my IV. The last thing I remember was thinking, "This is kind of like a roller coaster. I love roller coasters!"

They performed a lumpectomy and removed one sentinel lymph node. I'm very fortunate that we caught it early and it was small. Here's were I get on my soap box about regular mammograms. Getting regular mammograms has undoubtedly saved my life. My cancer was buried underneath my breast tissue and I may never have felt it myself until it was really big. So, ladies, get your regular mammograms!!!! If it's been a year or more, call Monday and schedule it!!! (OK, stepping off of my soap box.) I was so happy after surgery. For one thing, it was behind me but also the medication made me very agreeable. I was up all day after surgery talking and talking and having a wonderful time. It felt good to be numb to the reality of my situation for a day and I knew that my incision was hurting but I just didn't care.

We were instructed to tend to my incision every hour. The first night I was snug in my bed in a drug dazed state and my wonderful Mom and Dad came in every hour on the hour and tended to me. They were like soft sweet silver angles hovering over me all night. None of us really got any quality sleep but it's a really nice memory for me to have in my library. I have been getting lots of phone calls, emails and notes on face book as well as comments on my last blog, with love and support. I can't tell you how grateful I am.

Today the anesthesia has worn off and I'm not taking the narcotic pain meds so the euphoria has dwindled. I'm very happy to have surgery behind me and I'm anxious to find out the results of the pathology reports. That will determine what treatment will come next. I may dodge a bullet and avoid Chemo but that remains to be seen. I will have radiation. This will all unfold over the next two weeks.

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