Is that a bit of steam I see? Are the wheels moving?

Monday, November 11, 2013

First let me say a huge THANK YOU to all the Veterans living and those that gave their lives for the freedom I have in the beautiful country I live in. I salute you one and all.


I think I may see a bit of steam and hear the clickity clack of the surgery train coming on down the track.  My nasty head cold seems to be doing a lot better today as I continue to stick to the med regimen given to me by the doctor over the weekend and I continue to ingest lots of vitamin C and lots, lots, lots of water.  So fingers still crossed, I am hoping we'll still be 'on track' for the surgery Friday, November 15th.

I got a call from the anesthesia department (pre-op) to get my history background and tell me the exact scheduling of all that will happen.  So for those of you who have ask about it here's the schedule:

3:30 PM November 14th-- SENTENAL NODE DYE INJECTION

      I will go in and have the die injected to do the Sentenal Node (which helps them find the 1st lymph node under my arm.....they will  remove to make sure the cancer has not spread into the nodes.  They plan on taking the first 3 nodes for testing and to run the calculation that will give me % of possible recurrence......which will help determine if I will need to have chemo. ( I some really informative YouTube videos made by a woman named Krista Moon --one of which was what to expect when you go to have the die injected)  I was so so so glad I found it because I had earlier found a video of them removing the nodes and was thinking that is what I was in store for on Thursday afternoon.........but thankfully I will be in "LaLa Land" when they actually remove them.....Thank you Thank you Thank you Krista (somewhere in Michigan) for your       excellent videos.

      No food or water after midnight.....

6:00 AM November15th--NEEDLE POINT AND SURGERY

      I report to the hospital to start prepping  for a 7:30 procedure of needle marking of the exact location of the tissue they will remove of any part of the cluster of cells that wasn't taken in the biopsy, the margins, and those 3 lymph nodes (OK....so I'm not sure what this involves.  I'm sure I probably had it done last time, but that's all such a blur I can't even begin to remember what it entailed.  I'm thinking of it as outlining a cross-stitch picture prior to doing the cross-stitch
                                 
  

Well actually I did find a video and what this involves is them (under anesthesia) inserting a wire into the breast and down into the tissue that has the cancerous cells so that the surgeon sees exactly where he needs to cut and what he needs to remove as far as the cells and the margins around them....and then while they are doing that they use a probe to find the hot spot of the blue dye that was injected so they can then remove the lymph nodes. (That's right....on Friday morning I will have my own WiFi!!!!)....oh OK probably a different kind hotspot! :)

Bada Bing Bada Boom......and 


Anyway, that's all I know right now.  I've got lots of research to do on eating healthier, the importance of exercise and getting  stress out of my life......all really important alternative routes to fighting any recurrence.  I don't want to do chemo.....but I did it 11 years ago when I had cancer on the other side and as I did then, I'll listen carefully to  the statistics, percentages etc. and the advice of the oncologist (that I've yet to meet) and make my decision.....and as they say, cross that bridge when I get to it.

See you tomorrow or Wednesday.....Think I'll shut this computer down and go watch the boob tube....(no pun intended!)