Surgery

Hi everyone,

Lois checked into the hospital this morning at 7:30. The first procedure was to inject her breast with a radioactive dye which would find its way into the lymph nodes in her armpit. The procedure didn’t take very long and soon she was sitting in the waiting room with my sister and me: in a wheel chair; wearing her hospital garb; with the IV-tree and all its nasty looking plastic valves and tubes inserted into a vein, standing tall nearby.

The radioactive dye finds it way to the lymph nodes and concentrates itself in what are called sentinel nodes. The doctor told us some people have no sentinel nodes, some have 2 or 3. Lois had two. In the old days of breast surgery, the entire regiment of nodes in the arm pits was removed. They no longer do that. The sentinel node(s) stand as sentries to lymph draining from the breast. I don’t understand all there is to understand about how this works, but apparently by taking only the sentinels, they are able to determine the severity of the cancer, its degree of spread, and the type of therapy that will be prescribed (radiation, chemo, etc.). The two sentinel nodes he harvested from Lois were small - “a good sign,” the doctor said. He also told us they “felt good” when he inspected them manually.

The doctor said the lump in her breast had a “clear margin” around it. The “margin” is a standard by which surgeons measure the distance between the malignancy and the closest, clearly unaffected tissue surrounding it. The measure is 10 millimeters (roughly the length of a fingernail): her were all within this range. There is some evidence that there were other microscopic growths near the lump, but they appear to have all been contained within a “clearly defined margin.” This is preliminary news, but it is GREAT news.

Now we wait for the lab results. The doc said they would be in by late Thursday and that he would be calling us as soon as he has them.

Right now she is resting comfortably here beside me in a very nice, private room on the fourth floor of the hospital from which she can see off in the distance the Horse Heaven Hills and good ol’ Jump Off Joe (the highest of the hills for those of you living outside the area).

She has a button to push when she feels pain, for which so far there has been none (but then she’s been pushing the button about every ten minutes or so, until she fell asleep – the nurse said if she needs pain medication while she’s sleeping, she’ll wake up and push the button); she’s been for a short walk; she and I each had an outstanding cheeseburger from the kitchen (the food at Kadlec is good!); she’s in excellent spirits, and it’s good to see her resting peacefully with no pain.

The doctor said he didn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be able to go home in the morning, Tuesday. I’m not looking forward to being the ONE responsible for her drain tubes (2), and her regularly scheduled pain medications over the next few days, but as long as my son-in-law knows where I keep my mower, I’ll be ok. James, did you read that?!

Thanks for all your responses here in the blog, and by email and phone calls. One thing we’ve learned is that it’s true, cancer patients don’t mind talking about their experiences, and the support from family and friends is so important.

More tomorrow.