The Surgery and visit to the Oncologist

The Surgery 

Heading to the hospital, starving, and would give ANYTHING for a glass of water I was so super nervous. I was definitely looking forward to having this cancer out of me but nervous about the surgery and the recovery. After we arrived at the hospital and got us right in to pre op. They gave me some pretty good meds and I was out like a light. Bry was in the waiting room reading his book from cover to cover. They told us that my surgery was suppose to take about an hour and a half.

So Bry sitting in the waiting room was getting quite nervous when it took over 3 hours for them to come out and give him an update. I guess they found something in there that did not look right so they had to remove that as well and made the surgery much longer than anticipated. Because of that they had to admit me for the night. We were not planning on this and were not prepared to stay the night. We made the best of it. I was starving and was so relieved when Andrea and Sam came over with a big fat turkey sub and some amazing peanut butter cookies. Yep, I was not having any problem with nausea, all I wanted was a gallon of water and my sub! I did end up getting a roommate for the night. They still let Bry stay with me. It was the worst night EVER!!!!! I was exhausted but pumped full of steroids from the surgery so I could not settle down. My IV alarm went off 6 times during the night. I had to get vitals checked every 4 hours, and my roommate snored so loud I could hear her through my ear plugs! Somehow Bry slept much better than I did:-) We got all of our discharge information and got out of there in time to get to our Oncologist appointment.

Oncologist Appointment 

Now here is where I start to go a bit fuzzy. I am overtired and hopped up on hydrocodon not a very good combo when going in to get the news we got. Pretty much I heard, you need a ton of tests done, chemo starts in 2 weeks, and you will lose your hair within the next month in a half. After than I pretty much shut down. It was a very emotional afternoon for me. I pretty much knew this was going to be the news we were going to get but now we have it all scheduled so it is very real. I am feeling better and accepting it a lot better today now that I have had a cup of coffee and a good nights sleep. I am going to hand the computer off to Bryan so that he can explain the Oncologist visit in a bit more detail:

The news the Oncologist gave us was only new in 2 respects (both good news):

1. Her H2N came back negative, which means that the cancer is less aggressive than if it was positive
2. The cancer tested positive for Estrogen receptors but negative for Progesterone receptors. This means that she's a good candidate for hormonal therapy after the chemo and radiation... meaning she has to take a pill for the next 5-10 years. However, it greatly reduces the probability of a recurrence and her prognosis becomes much, much better.

She also explained that we're at least in a Stage 2 situation. The results of the tests that are coming back this week and next will determine whether or not she's a Stage 3 (and I don't even want to think about the possibility of Stage 4). We signed up for more tests, such as the PET test to determine the extent of the growth, an EKG to get a baseline heart performance before chemo, blood-work, a genetic test, a chemo class, and many other appointments.

They gave us the timeline and recommended regimen for chemo. She will be undergoing 8 treatments of A/C Taxol every 2 weeks starting on February 5th. By my projection, that puts us at the end of chemo on May 14, where we'll start the radiation.