The Middle of the Mix

It is officially a week and a half since surgery and despite some uncomfortable swelling, I'm doing really well! In fact the doctors seem quite pleased with themselves that everything looks so good and is healing nicely. Although it may not sound like it when you talk to me, I have thankfully been off the heavy medications for a week. Those things are awful!! Next time maybe I'll avoid them all together (and hopefully next time I'll also experience as little pain as this time :))

The hospital was fun to begin with- they put me in a pretty purple paper gown with purple socks and ran warm air all over me, so I was pretty comfy. The surgery went a little longer than expected but went smoothly. Poor mom waited for a very long time for me to come to! I was sedated at 12:30 and was finally in my own room around... 7? I don't really remember much ;). Thankfully some friends kept mom company at least part of the time.

After that was the un-fun part of the hospital where they kept us awake all night. It was a relief to go home in the morning where I slept in my own bed through the next 4 days. Dad came to visit and on Sunday we hobbled around the Mesa temple grounds. They are beautiful this time of year! 

After he left, mom and I kept very busy meeting with all the doctors and shopping (some of which I actually needed). We got a very sweet poster in the mail from her kindergarteners and they all signed it and drew me pictures. It's funny the simple things that touch you right? 

There have been many things like that from thoughtful people that make a big difference. And getting meals from the ward is so helpful!! Thank you everyone who is reaching out and for all the prayers! Mom went home yesterday, but I'm surrounded by enough supportive people that I know I can get through everything even with her in Idaho.

The UPDATE: the tumor ended up being 2.4 cm (over double what we thought). They removed 15 lymph nodes also and 7 of them contained cancer cells, at least one of which had grown outside its capsule. Which all just basically means in order to fight any cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of my body, they recommend 6 rounds of chemotherapy (3 weeks apart) and local radiation therapy immediately after that. My cancer was HER2neu positive, which means they can use a drug called herceptin (a hormone blocker) to fight it, which I'll take for a full year. I start chemo this Thursday (quick right!?). So I can look forward to having Voldemort on the back of my head within a month!

Good news! They did some testing of my genes for nearly 30 known breast cancer 'causing' mutations, and I came back completely negative! Which of course confused them but for some reason makes more sense to me (since there is NO history of breast cancer in my family). It's just a funny thing that happened to me that I'm called to go through that I probably won't know the reason for until I get to have a face-to-face PPI with the Big Man. But honestly it probably won't be the first question I ask Him (dinosaurs anyone??). Anyway, the genetic testing lady still recommended any women related to me to start having mammograms at like age 30 (I'm sincerely sorry!!). Personally for petite women like me I still think you can probably catch as much by self checking monthly... But I'm definitely not a doctor!