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Hi all. Let me start off once again by giving a huge thank you to all who have been so thoughtful and caring to us through this, and who have offered their prayers etc. It really does help to receive such sincere wishes and know that we have so many good people praying for us.
Stacey had her mastectomy, lymph node dissection and reconstructive surgeries last Wednesday. We got there at 4:30 in the morning and she didn't make it up to her room until almost 6 PM. Needless to say, it was the LONGESTTTTTTTT day I've ever gone through and I think I've now sampled every coffee shop's coffee in Manhattan. Lord knows, 12 hours alone in the city with nothing else to do but wait gives someone a whole lot of time to walk around aimlessly, ya know? So anyway, all of the operations went great. When I finally got to see her at 5:30 pm, she was talking and doing well but was still quite out of it from the anesthesia and morphine. The surgeries all went great though and they said she should heal quite nicely and that she has really good skin. Though she was originally brought into recovery at noon, there was a huge delay in people awaiting rooms so she stayed in the recovery area for quite a while. They said they just wanted her to sleep and didn't want her to have any company. I didn't complain because I knew that's what she needed most, but I was just so anxious after having already waited for so many hours. But when I was finally able to see her 12 hours later and look at her sweet face, I was immediately overcome with every single reason why I love her so much. I was so proud of her. She's done so well with all of this. I looked at her and just knew that there is no way we're going to let this thing win. In fact, I know we're going to kick the shit out of it.
She then stayed in the hospital for about 3 days and was very quick to recover from the operation. After coming home on Friday, she was back to her old self and other than not having any mobility in her left arm, you'd never even know she had just gone through such an extensive operation. I was thankful for how well she handled all of it and how non-traumatized she was after seeing herself in the mirror. I was really worried she'd think herself maimed and begin to have a poor self image. Though I'm sure it still affects her, she reacted to it quite well. I also made sure I did my part in assuring her that she was still beautiful and sexy to me, and that the scars/missing breast didn't bother me one bit. And I'm not blowin smoke up her ass by sayin that either since I absolutely mean it. The surgeons did such a great job and I'm not mentally taken aback by the appearance at all, though I must admit prior to the operation I wasn't sure how I'd react to seeing it. But she's as sexy as she's ever been to me.
Since coming home, day by day she's gotten better and better. The only real thing that's bothered her emotionally has been her inability to hold our two active toddlers and her limited ability to play with them. That's had an affect on them as well, but they do understand to some extent that she's 'sick'. The surgical drains coming out of her have been a pain (both figuratively and literally), and I hated having to 'milk' them twice a day for her since I knew it hurt her as I was doing it. Thankfully, she healed so quickly that she was able to have both of them removed today, after only a week. She's on cloud 9 having them out of her now. She friggin hated them lol.
We also had the post op follow up this afternoon and got the final pathology. She had 22 lymph nodes removed and only one was malignant. That's not great, of course, but given that she already had the intramammary lymph node affected and how aggressive her cancer type is, there was definitely a risk for far more to have been affected. So only having one additional, or 2 out of 23 altogether, was actually a bit of good news since the additional one really doesn't alter her prognosis or future treatment at all, after already having had the original node in her breast affected.
So that's where we're at right now. In a nutshell, rather than all my long winded babbling above, it just comes down to her operations went great, she's in great spirits, she's healing well, she's beautiful as ever, and we're both ready to kick the shit out of this thing. We meet the medical oncologist for the first time next thursday evening, and will know more about when chemo starts and for how long, after that appointment.
So for now, thanks again for all of your caring thoughts and heartfelt prayers. It always makes it easier to go through things like this knowing that we have the support and caring of so many, both from people we don't know and people we do.
God bless ya all, and I'll keep ya posted,
OMC
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