I'm Baaaaacccck!

Hey!! I AM back!! And in much better shape, emotionally! I'm feeling Much better, let's say that!!

Actually, a few days after my surgery on October 26, 2005, I began to feel a whole lot better emotionally, like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders! I began to feel that way when I said to friends, "I'm cured!" "I no longer have cancer." Of course, I have to admit, there is a little tiny, tiny voice in the back of my head saying, "oh, don't tempt the Gods, maybe you have cancer somewhere else and it just hasn't shown up yet!" Well, that may be true but for this round, I'm cured!

I was doing pretty good the morning of the surgery, holding it all together pretty well, having a cheerful smile on my face, etc., when they told me I had to go down to another room and have an injection in my nipple for the dye to check out my lymph nodes for their biopsy. Uh, okay. An injection in my nipple??? Can't they put me to sleep for that? "No," they said, "because how would we get you back here?" Well, okay, it must not be too bad, I guess. Duh!! It was horrible!! Don't ever let anyone inject something into your nipple!! My words of advise!!

I couldn't believe it! The sweet little 35 year old female MD who did the injection was saying, "oh, no one complains about this, it's like a little bee sting." Well, to me it felt like a 200lb bee slamming into my nipple with his huge mean stinger!! I'd never let them do that to me again awake!!

After that, my composure was gone, I just started crying and crying, feeling very sorry for myself!! Fortunately my sweet partner was there and he was very loving, which certainly helped. Fortunately, they also put me to sleep pretty soon after that, around 2 PM in the afternoon at the Anderson Outpatient Clinic, for a "skin-saving" mastectomy. I thought I might even be going home that night, from what the nurses said. Didn't happen. They decided to keep me. I woke up around 6 or 7 pm and was still pretty out of it.

My partner stayed for awhile, but I was pretty dopey. He told me he left me my handbag, but I didn't remember later that he had told me that. I did get to feeling better each hour as the night went on. Probably about midnight, I could have gone home, but it was just as well that I stayed the night.

I had a drainage tube coming out of my left armpit and my left breast felt pretty sensitive. Here it is, November 14, 2005 when I am writing this and I still have the drainage tube coming out of my armpit and my breast is still pretty sensitive! I can drive, for short trips, like 10 miles. This afternoon I'm going to my plastic surgeon's office to have the drain removed. Thank heaven!! That will be a big improvement. Then I also have an appointment with the medical oncologist. She is going to tell me about my pathology report, whatever the heck that is...I'll let you know.

Write me please and let me know about your experiences.