Surgical Follow-up

Had a follow-up appointment today with the surgeon. Well, not actually with the surgeon, but with his PA instead - evidently he's all done with me. I didn't take it personally, since it means I am also all done with HIM!

I put in a call to the oncologist's office to find out how I go about moving on to the radiation treatments. I'm hoping to hear back from them tomorrow, but I won't be one bit surprised if it's not until next week. No matter. I'm going out of town on business all next week and can't do anything until I get back anyhow.

Yay! One step closer.

I AM OFFICIALLY CANCER-FREE!!!

The surgeon's office just called to tell me that the margins around my latest excision were CLEAR!!!

I am technically CANCER-FREE at this point! Yay!

The surgeon's office is going to fax the pathology report over to the oncologist. Once I am healed from this last surgery I will be able to start the radiation treatments, hopefully by the week of October 6th. That should leave plenty of time to get all the radiation treatments in before the end of the year (and before my co-pays kick in again on our insurance! Woot!)

I am so happy right now I could just spit. But that would be gross. So I won't.

Many thanks to all of you who have been so supportive and have helped with all your good thoughts and prayers. I hope you know how much I've appreciated it all.

Surgery #2 Complete

The deed is done and all went well. Arrived at hospital at 6:00 a.m. and was taken back to prep pretty much immediately. Just like last time, things went very smoothly and everything was a breeze. Even breezier in fact, because the two things that sucked so much last time (the waiting and getting the IV) didn't come into play this time. The surgery started right on time at 7:30, and the nurse I had this time gave me lidocaine to numb my hand before putting the IV in. That, of course, makes me even more pissed off about the last time. The nurse I had this time told me that almost every nurse uses the lidocaine or a numbing spray, but there are "one or two" who refuse to use it. Lucky me, I got one of those nurse nazis the last time. This time - easy!!! I was home by 10:30 and spent the rest of the day unsuccessfully trying to get more sleep, but at least getting lots of good rest.

Recovery is going well again. I'm a little bit more sore this time, I think because they used the same incision site, perhaps. But I feel great. I am taking it MUCH easier this time around and trying not to overdo it too much like I did the last time. I have colleagues handling all my works stuff for the remaining two days this week - I'm not even logging into my work e-mail account (very difficult for me, I want you to know!) And I had Dale dig out my "Lord of The Rings" movies so I can just lay around all day to day and watch some of them.

(As a funny aside, telling my buddy Steve about that led to this text conversation:

Me: I'm going to have Dale find my LOTR movies for me tonight. That will keep me occupied for tomorrow.
Steve: it's hard to watch 9 hrs of lotr back to back....argh. you should hae netflixed all the movies i've been bugging u to see
Me: Yeah 9 hours of Viggo Mortenson and Orlando Bloom will be really tough on me I'm sure.)

Heh.

The boys did VERY well on their school-night sleepover with our friends. I'm told they were very well-behaved and went to bed easily and on-time. I'm very proud of them.

Nothing else to report. The surgeon says he should have the final pathology report in around 3 days. "Three days" = "two weeks" in the medical world, I have come to find out. But with any luck at all I may be able to get it when I have my follow-up appointment with the surgeon next week. But I'm not holding my breath.

Off to get the boys to the bus stop, then I'm hittin' the couch!

SU2C

www.standuptocancer.org

I worried over nothing.

After my long-winded post fretting about how - or even whether - to tell R. what was going on, I decided to take advantage of his "captive audience" status during a trip home from Ohio to visit Grandma. P. was sleeping and R.'s DS had (mercifully) run out of battery, so I took the opportunity to let him know what was going on. I'll spare you the details but I was very clear about telling him that mommy is NOT sick and will be alright. The end result? Mostly he was just excited about the prospect of having a sleepover at a friend's house the night before my next surgery! I should have known. So all that worry was for nothing, I'm happy to say.

On another kid-related note - today was the first day of school!!! Yay!!!!