The Fog

Well, I am beginning to wonder if I will ever be able to finish that more detailed post on my New York trip, or another post on what the surgery was like...

Got the call this afternoon.  The one where I thought for sure they were going to tell me that the lumpectomy went great, the pathology came back and they got the margins all wonderfully clear.  I had been having some twinges under my arm in the weeks after Chemo and was expecting to hear that my lymph nodes were not clear (which also meant I would not qualify for that research study).

Instead, what she said was the exact opposite - Great news, yay and all that - my lymph nodes were clear - all 29 of them (I think that is a lot of lymph nodes)!  Unfortunately, the margins were not.  So sorry to tell you that this means you need to do surgery over again so we can clear those margins.  But, it will be a really short surgery.  Ha.  What difference does it make when you are not awake to feel the passing of time?  (Okay, I suppose it means less time under anesthesia and less waiting for those that are waiting, but still...)

As my friend, Beth said, I have to do my fear landscape over again.  More needles, more anesthesia, another breathing tube, more drugs, more recovery, more fun.  Sigh.  When I woke up from the surgery last week and she showed me her handiwork, I remember thinking I had made the right decision.  I was glad I chose a Lumpectomy.  I could be looking down at nothingness, but I wasn't.

But you may remember when I was making the Lumpectomy vs. Mastectomy decision that under the Cons list I had "Could still need Mastectomy".  Well, that is not what I am hearing her saying.  We are not moving right to Mastectomy, but maybe I should've been more clear that it could mean more surgery, regardless, if they don't get those margin things.  And now my new fear is that I will do this additional surgery only to find out they still didn't get the margins and now we really are looking at a Mastectomy.  Not only another surgery, but now the loss of my vision of the future, yet again.

I really am not sure how well I would handle that. I feel like I have been hanging tough.  Facing things as they come and saying, "Ok.  I can do this.  I just gotta get through it and then we can move on."  But, I am supposed to be past this step and now I am looking at repeating it.  Isn't that the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome)?

So...yeah...my insanity is already scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30am.  I have to be at the hospital at 6:45am (an improvement on last week's 5:30am, so I guess not everything will be the same).  I have no idea what time I will be home, but I think a safe bet is 4pm, since it took me quite some time to come out of the anesthesia fog last week and I know they want you to get up and move around a bit before you are discharged.

I have a lot going on right now - soccer season has started for three of our kids, I started potty training Hugo on Monday (and he was doing really great), summer registration for Parks and Rec is this Saturday and I have been busy making complicated charts of who is doing what which week and how we will get there and make it work (while also doing radiation every day for many of those weeks), it seems like it is field trip season at school and preschool, not to mention I was supposed to be in co-charge of Staff Appreciation at Burleigh in two weeks and am now very grateful there are really good people who have stepped up to take that over.  But, it makes me feel like a big ol' failure.  I know I am not.  I really do.  I still feel like one.

Plus, my "carrot" for making it through the last surgery was a Girls Weekend this weekend in Lake Geneva.  I still plan to have that Girls weekend, but am hoping that I am not too hepped up on drugs to enjoy it.

Here's to praying for clear margins this time around and for the fog to lift quickly and completely so I can get back to the more important things in life.