Vacation/Healing

Ah, finally my incision is completely closed up with no further drainage. Last night was the last time I put a fresh dressing on. This morning, absolutely nothing and it is bonded together now. What a dip in the boob, though. Sick! I am curious to see how it all heals up in the next few weeks and months. Will it fill in somewhat? Will it just remain a strange shape that it now is? Or will it fill in somewhat with fatty tissue? I have an appointment with the oncologist on Monday. I can't wait to go because I'll have more questions answered including the final lab results as to the hormone receptors and the HER2 gene. Those results I don't know about yet and of course right now it's not going to make a hoot of difference since I have to wait 6 weeks post surgery anyway to begin radiation treatments. Maybe they will only recommend hormone therapy? And will I gain weight when I do that? Will they still want to do chemotherapy anyway? All these questions I need to have answered and hopefully will on Monday. I don't plan to go to work on Monday. My appointment is at 8:45 - early.

At the moment we are in Oregon enjoying some R & R, visiting with Andrea and family, playing games, watching movies. Today we drove to Tualatin area to a specific shopping area because it has a Whole Foods. Here's an aisle, with Ralph poking around - he enjoying searching the aisles as much as we did because the products are all so unique.

I spent quite a bit there. Then we walked across and had lunch at the Macaroni Grill - yum! Delish Italian food - a couple of pics of course!

The healing process is a very lengthy one, it turns out. Had a frightening experience with drainage from the incision while at Camp Hope, by myself, with no one there to help me ... suffice to say it was not pleasant and it really freaked me out. Obviously, I'm still okay. Went to the surgeon twice since the surgery. He is happy with the progress. His response, "I wasn't going to go in there a third time!" when I asked him how I managed to get so bruised!

I'm having to still apply a dressing twice a day but hoping that in a week's time or so things will be healed up enough to no longer have to do that. I'm on two weeks off from work and we managed to get to Banff/Canmore for 3 nights. On the 2nd day I got really sick - in this picture I'm smiling but I'm feeling really, really lousy with yet another head cold - the third one since January. Not good. I need to have a few months off work and just take care of myself, I think.

I have an appt with the oncologist on the 24th - can't wait to see what he has to say about my prognosis and recommended treatment!

Anyway, back to our little vacation - it was so nice to be a tourist for a little while. The hotel was really nice. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of Canmore - there were no sirens, we heard nothing from any of the other guests in the hotel and didn't have to listen to anyone else talking than each other! It was lovely! It rained at the end of our day at Banff but not before we were able to fit in a couple of sightseeing things.

Even though it was only 2 whole days, and 2 driving, it felt like a long time actually because we weren't interrupted by other people talking, etc.

Off to Andrea's in a couple of days to do some shopping, movie watching and general vistation!

Healing

Things are healing along nicely but wow, never seen my breast so bruised before. It wasn't like that the first time, but this time the surgeon must have really dug around in there because the whole bottom half of my breast is a deep purple. It's getting itchy which is a good sign. Staples come out on Friday (yay!). Can't wait so that the healing process can continue and I can move on to the treatment phase of this whole experience.

I had intended to drive out to the camp tonight but got so tired after my nap that I decided not to. I decided to take it easy and get more rest. Glad I did. Nearly everything is in the car now. I'll be coming back again tomorrow night since I have a Dr.'s appointment on Friday morning to remove the staples. Then I'll be locked in at the camp for sure. Not sure if I should be excited about it or be dreading it!

Time will tell.

2nd Surgery Done!

Yay - the 2nd surgery has come and gone. Thank goodness. It was NOT as "pleasant" an experience as the 1st one if you can call it pleasant! I had a bit of a negative reaction to the anesthetic. If I ever have to go for another surgery at Abby Hospital I'm going to ask for the same anesthetist as the 1st surgery back in June! I went in feeling rather wonderfully calm, not the norm for me to say the least. I chalk it up to my prayers and those of my friends and family. Going under was rather strange, as always. I just hate drugs. Coming out of it, I distinctly recall the anesthetist pulling something out of my mouth and saying, "Okay, it's time to wake up now! You're all done!" and then I promptly kept sleeping. Next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. Then on to the ward again and eventually home. I was very anxious and had a pounding heart rate, normal but pounding. I just detest that feeling of not being in control, not being able to calm oneself down. Every time I closed my eyes to sleep and nearly drifted off some other patient would be talking or a nurse would be doing something and hence I woke up again.

It must have been about 9 pm by the time I felt that the anesthetic was starting to run through my system. I slept rather restlessly Thursday evening, having to pee every hour it seemed and I was in a lot of pain so I took several T-3's over a period of about 12-16 hours. Yesterday I weaned myself onto ibuprofen and today nothing so far. It's much better today. I feel great today, in fact. Had a good sleep despite the warm temps in the house.

So glad that's over. A friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to an article about how bad mammograms are for women and that there are "better" ways of detecting tumors. In fact, if only one would do breast self examinations correctly, one would find all sorts of tumors that mammograms themselves don't even detect. Good grief! Seriously?! Come on! I wrote back saying how thankful I am that I went for my annual mammos because were it not for that I would have never felt the tumor in my breast which turned out to be cancerous. I am so thankful - praise God! I believe that God gives man the ability to understand our bodies, the science of what's going on in our cells. Many of these types of people make a 180 turn when they discover themselves to have a cancerous tumor of some type. How amazingly fast they turn their opinions right around in order to live!

My friend also said the one mammogram she'd had years ago was "invasive". I fail to see how that is invasive - no one's putting a hole into your body to insert something or take something out, as I have had now had done. That's "invasive" and even then, in my case, it was necessary!

The small risk involved in the radiation emitted by mammograms is so minor when compared to the positive outcomes of their accuracy in detecting tumors or cysts that need to be treated. You could carry it so far as to say, fine, I won't have an annual pap smear either! In fact, don't x-ray my teeth which for all we know may be rotting below the gum level but hey - I'd rather live with the pain and hey, you can SEE, can't you, that the tooth is rotting, so simply go ahead and extract the part that's rotten and fix me up. And while you're at it, don't even bother giving me any type of freezing because, heaven forbid, you should put any kind of poison into my "perfect" body!

Argh!

You can see that I get pretty upset when people talk this way about medicine. I am no druggie either. In fact I really detest taking pills of any kind. I have NEVER NOT taken antibiotics when prescribed. They are necessary to fight serious and potentially life-threatening infections. However I do not believe in popping a pill to give myself good health if it is not necessary. We all know the basic things to do to keep our bodies healthy: good diet, exercise, rest, low stress, sunshine and water. Unfortunately we live in a world full of toxins that we have no control over. There is much that we CAN do to avoid them: no smoking, little or no alcohol, don't overdo the sun exposure, eat organic if possible. But really ... no mammograms because it could squish your blood vessels which could burst and cause cancer cells to start growing and spread throughout your body?! Really!!!!

That being said, it's so nice to have a few days to spend at home, enjoying my own house and yard. The sun is shining, how can I complain? Oh, I suppose the heat, yeah, the humidity, that's it!

Anyway, happy times. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts.

Sick Again

As soon as I stepped into the office today I felt a tickle in my throat and now I'm feeling sick! I can't afford to be sick just a little more than a week ahead of a surgery, can I?! I don't want to have to delay the 2nd surgery!!! I'm sucking back echinacea in the hopes that it won't develop into a real cold. I've already been sick twice since Christmas.

One bright spot is watching the Tour de France! It always makes me feel as though I'm right there and traveling in Europe! Wish I could go back someday.

Wildlife

So we went for a walk along Sumas River yesterday evening (because it was just too darn hot to go when the sun was at its peak) and we ran into this:

Obviously we didn't get terribly close! It was kind of fun to see a bear for real but uh, no - I prefer to stay safely in town!!! And to think that we used to go hiking in the mountains all the time just me and Ralph and Peter when he was only 2 years old. He used to love walking around in the bush. We never saw a bear once.

So I started cleaning out the basement today - only the kitchen for now. I still have to clean the windows and blinds and wipe down the walls. But good grief, what a mess down there. So much junk that's just been dumped onto the counters and in the cupboards and drawers simply because the room is there to dump stuff. It's basically just a garage but it's spread throughout the entire basement. Stupid. Why do we allow ourselves to get lazy and do that? Later on you have so much work cleaning up after yourself. There is a lot to do down there yet and I'll get to it but one thing at a time. It was good to get started at least!

AND it was fun to watch Federer beat Roddick today at Wimbledon although all through the entire match it was hard to tell who would ultimately win, right up to the very end. It was very exciting! 5 sets and the last was just one long tiebreaker, back and forth, each winning their own service games. The fifth set was won by Federer, of course, 16 games to 14 games. Unreal. Now he has 15 grand slam titles, more than anyone ever before, beating Pete Sampras' record. And he was there to see it happen.

Very exciting.

Moving Along

FINALLY I got a phone call from the surgeon's office with the date for my 2nd surgery - July 16th. Thank goodness! The waiting is really hard. Not knowing. Wondering what's going on in my body. Feeling fine and then breaking down at the silliest things! I've been feeling good mentally for a long time but once in a while I've lost it a little and just cried like a child! I try not to be hard on myself for that because it's only happened a couple of times to date. I think I'm allowed to feel that way from time to time under the circumstances, don't you?

So many people have been praying for me - it's hard for me to wrap my brain around it because I din't think there are that many who really, truly care. Maybe I should open my eyes a little more and see what's going on around me? Or perhaps my expectations are too high that I don't see the good stuff that's right in front of me all the time! Probably the latter huh?

So now I look forward to the next surgery date. Thankfully it's close enough to the first one that I don't need to go for pre-op this time around. They did call me this afternoon and told me to come in then I reminded her that I had just been through pre-op prior to June 4th - she checked the file and sure enough told me that I didn't need to do it this time around. Good. I don't want to be poked by a needle again! I don't even want to go through this 2nd surgery but I know it's what needs to happen, then I can heal up from that, and look forward to the treatments which hopefully will only be radiation and not the full on chemotherapy. With any luck huh?

Counting forward, camp pitch begins on the 19th - I'll have my trailer out there but I won't start working much until Tuesday probably - at least that's my plan. I don't think my boss will mind if I kind of play it by ear which is what I should be doing - not pushing myself just because it's expected of me.

Now I wish I had a pool - it's so hot today and should be the same for the next couple of days. Hard to get any work done in the afternoons because it's just so warm. The house is hot. No A/C.