Surgery and recovering. I sailed right through the surgery, and I have yet to master the recovery. As scheduled, Charlie and I were at the hospital Monday, November 24 at 6:45 am to prep for the mastectomy that would remove the tumor and my entire left breast. That morning we had also scheduled a surgery to remove any lymph nodes that may have been infected by the cancer as well as reconstructive surgery for my left breast that same day. During surgery prep, my parents, sister Emily, and in-laws all came to wish me well and pray for me before going back. It was during this time that I was injected with a blue dye that lit up all of my lymph nodes, showing the surgeons if any were cancerous as well. Going into surgery, we thought only one lymph node may have been involved. One seemed suspicious, but it had looked clean during a recent ultra sound, but still, it seemed unlikely that the cancer hadn't spread.
It was also during surgery prep the nurses gave me what we like to call, "the relaxing drug". "The relaxing drug" made me really happy I was having surgery that day and it also gave me the "courage" to profess my love to my surgeon as well. (Dr. Kim Cradock at Carle in Champaign...I highly recommend her.) I don't remember anything after being wheeled into what seemed like a giant cooler, and I woke up somewhere with three people looking at me and saying, "Oh she's too young for all of this." Surgery lasted 7.5 hours and everything turned out great. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me and my family that day, your prayers were not unanswered.
I stayed in the hospital two nights and three days total; not too bad. HGTV galore, and so many good family and friends came to visit. I really am one of the luckiest girls alive to have so many people care. On the morning I was to be released, I woke up to use the restroom, and when I got back into bed, I felt extremely nauseous. I asked Charlie to please get me a cold washcloth and by the time he came back, I had passed out and caught myself with my face. Ouch. After about a half hour of laying on the floor answering a number of questions to a plethora of nurses and doctors, I was finally able to get back into bed. Bright yellow socks were put on my feet as well as a bright yellow bracelet that clearly labeled me as a fall hazard. An alarm was put on my bed so I couldn't leave without a nurse's presence and yellow hazard signs were placed outside my room and above my bed. How embarrassing. Even with all of this, I was determined to go home that day, and that is exactly what we did. We were released Wednesday evening and I was going to Thanksgiving at my grandma's house the next day.
Morning of surgery.
Thanksgiving morning I woke up and took my first shower in four days. I wasn't able to do it alone, and without my mom and Charlie, I couldn't have done it at all. It puts you in your place when something so simple as showering is something you can no longer accomplish alone. I'm a grown 27-year-old woman, I can bathe myself. Not that morning. I am so grateful for my mom and husband and the patience they have. I'm not always the easiest patient, but I appreciate them so so much every single day. Once the shower was over, we went to grandma's for thanksgiving. I ate, and then I slept. It was a wonderful day and I had so much to be thankful for. The last couple of weeks have gone by well. I have tried to learn how to rest and I am not exactly exceeding at it, but I'm trying.
During the last couple of weeks, Charlie and I have been back to Chicago and we have begun the process of harvesting my eggs. Chemo will age my ovaries to that of someone in their 40's, or I could possibly be thrown into early menopause. This is why we are harvesting my eggs before we begin this process. I've been put on hormone shots that will help my body produce more eggs and I will have a minor surgery to remove any eggs that have been produced on December 12 - December 16. Pray that the hormone shots don't effect my moods too much and a large number of eggs can be retrieved. Once the eggs have been harvested, they will be fertilized to create embryos. We are hoping to freeze around 10-15 embryos and our hope is that I will be able to carry them when the time is right. This has been an interesting and somewhat emotional process. One that has forced us to answer some hard questions such as if Charlie and I both die, do we want the embryos to be donated to a family who can't have children or thrown away? I mean, this isn't something Charlie and I have really sat around and discussed before. They didn't go over these questions during marriage counseling.
It was also during these last couple of weeks that we received the pathology report from the surgery. This report would tell us exactly how advanced the cancer was and if it had spread anywhere else in my body. When our surgeon called us, she let us know that all margins were negative, which is good and it means that they were able to remove all of the cancerous cells! Yay!! The tumor was much smaller than we thought, only 2.2 cm, but the cancer had spread to all of the milk ducts in my left breast which is why the tumor showed up so large on my MRI. They removed 21 lymph nodes from the left side of my body, and of the 21, four lymph nodes were cancerous, and one had cancer outside of the lymph node. No cancer had spread to my chest wall, but the surgeon said it was very close. Praise the Lord for His provision here. We also found out that my tumor was HER-2 Positive, which is different from my original diagnosis. This simply means that my cancer won't be as receptive to as many treatments as we had originally thought. It may not sound like it, but it was all good news. The cancer was out of my body now.
Chemo will start the first week of January, five to six months of treatment, and due to the spread of the cancer, we will still have radiation. I will lose my hair around the second round of chemo, and I'm just praying I get to keep my eye lashes and eyebrows. I know that sounds silly, but I've come to peace about losing my hair, not so much my eyebrows and eyelashes though.
While a lot has happened in the last two weeks, I'm so grateful things have finally begun to happen, I've healed extremely well from surgery, I have continued to be surrounded by so many loved ones, an abundance of food has been prepared for Charlie and I, my in-laws have graciously watch Ruger for us during recovering, and the Lord continues to allow me to remain positive about this situation. The fight has begun, and while we are still far from the victory, progress is being made.
What You Can Do:
- Pray for a healthy amount of eggs to be harvested.
- Pray that Chemo treatments will go well.
- Pray that my hormone injections won't make me crazy.
- Continued prayers for strength for Charlie and my family, I love them so much and I feel as if they carry more of this on their shoulders than I do.
- And we still love appreciate all of the food. :)
I chopped off my long hair. #noonefightsalone
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