May 29, 2009

I think I will try a different color, since my situation has changed. Dr. Dirbas, the surgeon, said the lymph nodes which were sent away for further and more intensive examination, do indeed show the very elusive lobular cancer cells. The same kind of cell that was impossible to detect on the mammograms is in the right arm lymph nodes. Surgery (I don't have to stay in the hospital) will be early Monday morning; it will take about an hour and a half. Then we will stay over in Palo Alto at a friend's house Monday night so we can do our regularly scheduled follow-up appointments with oncologist, surgeon and plastic surgeon on Tuesday morning.

I have detested the tubes coming out of my arm pits since the surgery. They are painful all the time and there is no relief and the one on the left came out completely this morning. I will wait until Monday and the surgeon will make the decision to perhaps put in a new one, depending on how much fluid may have built up. I was surprised the tube went so far into my body about 12 inches. It had been doing its job except the top broke off the bottle and we had to get some new pieces for repair. Since there is so much research in the field of cancer, perhaps a little bit of it could be spent on finding a better way to drain the fluids after a mastectomy. There has got to be a neater, less painless method for draining, emptying and measuring the output.

This turn of events has put Rigdon into quite a spin. He was looking forward to the tubes coming out next week, he discusses them as if they were part of his body and how can he go through all this again? There will be a drainage tube for the lymph nodes definitely on the right. He has risen to the occasion and gotten over any of the discomfort he had at the sight of bleeding, oozing or bruised body parts. The lymph node involvement has terrified him because of the implications. I feel I am outside this situation, looking at the reports and the diagnosis and figure this is not me who is going through this. I think I will take a walk, return to the house and will be told this cancer experience has happened to someone else, I am only the observer. I feel insensate to any pain lately, it is there and it hurts less daily. Then I think about Monday's surgery.

Apparently, removed lymph nodes can affect the healing on the right side (where my cancerous ones are), grasping, lifting and knitting. Well, now I have a real excuse for not finishing the baby sweater I have been working on for over a year. When my daughter asks me what she can do for me, I say "finish the sweater" and she says "no way", maybe I can finish it over the weekend before the surgery. Fat chance.

It's been a long difficult day for Rigdon, he has his e-mail notice about the new twist of fate written but I wouldn't let him send it out until I finished my blog. Change of guard tomorrow, Suzanne Tyler leaves and my sister, Georgina, joins us until June 8th. When I tell Rigdon I don't need anyone here 24/7, he says, "I do."