Surgery Update

It’s a little odd that I used the Full House gif Monday and then Dave Coulier went on the speaking circuit today to discuss his recent diagnosis of cancer.

But just a little update on how surgery went for me. There were a few things that I didn’t expect that I figure I might as well write about for the next person (or just for your own info). Because well, in general, the information that I received from surgery was not at the same level of detail as what I received from the chemo prep team. Some of this information was told to us in the appointment, but, given that “I had a lot going on at the moment“, I may have missed some of it. And what I did receive in writing was a bit contradictory! So it might benefit someone else to put a little more detail here.

Because I was having a lumpectomy, they needed to insert a guidewire to let the surgeon know where exactly she need to do the removal. This procedure was done in the imaging section of Prentice. I hadn’t exactly realized that this was where I needed to be or what was going to happen which led to me trying to go to two other places before I got to the right place! Not a great start.

But for the guidewire procedure, they first inserted the wire by using ultrasound. I happened upon this description of the process last night, so I’m going to link to it rather than try to describe it myself. I will only add that I think that room needs a TV or they need to let you keep your phone. Lying there thinking about the next steps without any distraction is not exactly calm.

And, unfortunately, something wasn’t quite right with the first guidewire, so they had to add a second wire under mammogram. (That time I took control and kept my Airpods for my playlists!) In the end, from what I understand, the guidewire looked like long “U” around the remaining tumor and the calcifications. They taped down the wires on my skin, but I did peak a look. It seemed rather odd to have two wires sticking out my skin!

Then, I headed up to surgical center. Beyond the usual surgical prep, they inserted a blue dye to identify the sentinel lymph nodes. They remove these for additional testing to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread to it. A good description of this process is here on Mayo’s website. John did have notes that they also look at/biopsy the sentinel nodes in the OR and if they were cancerous they would have removed all of the lymph nodes. And if they had, I would have woken up with drains. So it appears that the preliminary analysis in the OR is good news.

As for the rest of the procedure, well, I don’t remember much. I was asleep before we even left the prep room and I woke up in recovery. It was full general anesthesia, so my throat is sore from that tube. Other post-recovery items include that my urine was blue from the dye from the sentinel nodes. I am also convinced that I am smelling rubbing alcohol through my nose for awhile.

I do generally feel ok, but I’m looking forward to showering tomorrow! I am staying active as allowed, but also resting. I took a long nap this afternoon. I also suspect the blog posts might be a little lighter for a bit. My mom arrives later this week and I’m going to stay focused on staying healthy and recuperating! Basically, let’s go with no news is good news.

Thanks as always for the kind words and thoughts!