I was instructed to be at the hospital at 5am on the 17th of April… My doctor is pregnant and due, so I was thrilled when I knew she would be the one doing my surgery… They took me back to the prep room… my family took turns coming back and we said a prayer…. The anesthesiologist came in and said I’m going to give you something to make you sleepy…. I guess I lasted all of 10 seconds, no backwards countdown, I was just out….

The next thing I remember Darrell was there and the first thing I asked him was… “Did they take all my lymph nodes?” He said yes…. Each of my doctors made rounds and came in and talked to me but I was so out of it, I barely remember any of it… The took me to my room and my family was there… I barely remember it. My Mom said I was catatonic and my boys got really upset seeing me that way…. They left me to rest… I was so out of it, I had a morphine pump and I was barely pressing it because I was just so out of it from anesthesia… Surgery ended up taking much longer than we thought…

The breast removal went well and she had my left lymph nodes sent to the initial pathology… She told me she would have them cut them in half and see if there was cancer… Upon that initial cut, there wasn’t… So she asked him to slice them up a couple of times… and sure enough, there was cancer…. so as she told me if there was, she would take them all. My breasts and the lymph nodes taken from the right side were sent to final pathology….

I was then prepped for the 2nd part of the surgery with Dr. Clavin… he was placing the expanders… He told my family that it went much better than expected, I have really tight chest muscles… and he was able to expand them to 180 cc’s… with the intention of trying to get me to 400-450 cc’s…

At this point, we’re waiting for final pathology…. I may need radiation if there is a good amount of cancer in the breast…

I was at the hospital one day but they told me it was good if I could go home because my risk of infection would be less outside of the hospital…. So, I was home Friday evening.

My recovery has been pretty good… My Mom has been helping me with my drains… I think they will probably come out this week… I’m really, really sore but it’s tolerable as long as I keep on top of my pain meds… I’m taking Tramadol for pain because I don’t tolerate codeine products well…

So, one of my biggest worries come true… all my lymph nodes removed. She told my husband I shouldn’t lift as much as a frying pan with my left hand 😦  I need to be really, really careful to make sure I don’t get lymphedema… But to the best of my knowledge I am cancer free! And that’s what matters most….