Ding Dong The Witch is Dead - Part B

 If you haven't read it....go back one post to 'PART A' to catch yourself up....


So back to where I was......excruciating pain in my left foot finally subsiding and I'm left in the room to wait.....I look around the room and observe (I do that a lot because it gives me food for thought for my writing).  The room is multicolored.  One wall section is a pale olive green and the other wall is a Mediterranean blue....you know, a blue that is aching to be turquoise but needs a few more squirts of green mixed into the paint can, to make it so...... I'm guessing they were going for soothing colors.  The floors in that room, in every room and down every hallway in the hospital is like "fresh wax" shiny, giving the sense of sterile and clean. I'm waiting, observing and wondering what will happen next.  I've never had a "wire pinpoint procedure" done.

Oh I forgot to mention that they had covered me with toasty warm blankets



........ sometimes you don't even realize you are cold, until a nice warm blanket is put over you....felt soooo good.............and I wait.......

Then the anesthesia man came in my room and asked all the questions you should never ask a woman...How old are you?  How much do you weigh?  What kind of reaction do you have to anesthesia? Question 1  65, Question 2  I told him, I won't tell you! :) Question 3  Some nausea and I always wake up crying

 He assured he'd give me "stuff" in my IV before surgery that will help alleviate some of that.
He leaves......and I wait.....

Then Billy the original tech who took my vitals, came in with a wheel chair to take me down to Mammogram/Radiology to have me "wired up"....well actually it's called a Wire Localization Procedure.  I'm here to tell you that was quite the procedure.  I think it must be a prerequisite that the doctor (radiologist) that does this procedure can be no taller than 5' and weigh 100 pounds or less....For the women reading this (and the men, if you've had a mammogram), you are familiar with the mammogram machine.  It's big and cumbersome and once you get in front of the machine and get the machine wrapped around you so the slides can be taken, there is not much room for anyone else right in the machine area.  They deaden the area with a numbing solution (didn't feel anything, but a tiny stick)....and I guess it worked because I didn't feel anything but pressure when he put the hollowed needle into the breast and down to the spot where the cancerous cells are.  The procedure is done to pin point the exact spot so the surgeon can go directly to the cancer site.  A hollow needle is put into the breast....and you are being compressed by the machine at the same time.... and the doctor has to get under the machine (literally on his knees) to place that needle in.  Then pictures are taken to make sure he got it right to the spot.  If he missed even slightly, the needle placement has to be adjusted.  The doctor said the one thing they ask of their patients is that they close their eyes, stay perfectly still and say nothing                      but unlike a mammogram, you don't have to "hold your breath".  He comes back in to make any adjustment....then leaves again and more pics are taken.  He comes back in to put the wire down through the hollow part of the needle and removes the needle.....so you are left with a wire sticking out that is taped down and remains their until you are taken to surgery.  I am then taken back up to my room. John's allowed to come in at that point..........
. for the rest of the story