Although the pathology reports will not be available until Thursday, April 27, I just know that all is well! It took me until yesterday afternoon (24 hours after surgery) to realize that the cancer is gone from my body! What a good feeling. Yay!
For anyone with curiosity about some of the procedures that were done to ready me for surgery, here is what I recall and my understanding of what they did:
First I was taken to the Menorah Breast Center where I had the original mammogram that identified a problem and where I had the two biopsies done...so a familiar place within the Menorah complex. Here they put in a localization wire to the mass to be removed, using a sonogram and the little clip that was placed during the biopsy. This was done with a local anesthetic and was not at all painful. After placing the wire, two gentle mammograms were taken to make sure the placement was correct...it was fine on the first try. Since the wire sticks out of the skin and since my surgeon happens to prefer an extra long wire, it was taped into place so it was secure and then a Styrofoam coffee cup was placed over the end of the wire so I would not accidentally knock it out of place.
(Of course, I managed to knock the cup off when I was back in pre-op!) Immediately following the wire placement, I was moved to another procedure room within the breast center where radioactive dye was injected into my breast. They told me it would sting quite a bit but I did not find it to be too bad. Some time is required for the dye to move into the lymph system so after I was moved to the nuclear medicine department, I had about a 15 minute wait while I was supposed to move my arm as much as possible to get the dye moving. Below is an image of a gamma camera very similar to the one used to make the images of my lymph nodes. The surgeon was going to remove the sentinel node(s) to assure that there was no spreading of the cancer. The gamma camera was able to locate two nodes which the surgeon then was able to remove. Of course, they were both located under that Styrofoam cup which had to be moved again in order to mark my skin.
This part of the procedure was not at all unpleasant...although, I could not see the computer screen during the imaging which would have been interesting to me to see.
So, back to the pre-op room from there...I then got to experience the fancy hospital gown's heating/cooling system...I was really cold so they hooked up a little blower that introduced warm air into the lining of the gown! My daughters and Gary were then able to wait with me until it was time to go to the OR. Shortly before leaving for the OR, I was given a relaxing medicine which the nurse said would take effect it about 30 seconds...I remember saying to my kids, "Are you counting?" and that is the last I remember until waking in the recovery room.
Back at home, things have gone well. Pain well under control.
I am so lucky!
