(Catch-up of events from July & August)
By the time my July 9th surgery day came around, I’d hardly had time to get over the jetlag of the flight home (which had been an interesting 9 hours next to the most intoxicated person on the plane - not Lorne, I might add ;-) A woman from Glasgow who confessed, in extremely slurred babble, that she was so afraid of flying she’d already got hideously drunk at the airport bar and then proceeded to plough through a further nine bottles of in-flight red wine,, endeavouring to engage me in slurry, non-sensical burble, before finally - and all too briefly - passing out in her drunken stupour.)
It was an early start at BCCA - a 7:30am check-in followed by approximately 6 hours of me sitting around in waiting rooms or being wheelchaired from one department to another - even through a little-known underground tunnel system that runs between the Jim Pattison Building at Vancouver General Hospital and the BCCA. That was quite unique actually, wheeling through the dusty, underground duct-lined guts of such important buildings. (And eerily reminiscent of a spooky Swedish/Danish co-production "The Kingdom" by Lars von Trier that Lorne and I watched a couple of years ago.)
After an initial chest x-ray, I was piled up with warm blankets and wheeled off for an ultrasound which took forever. The technician was trying to place wire markers in my breast to indicate both areas that were to be removed - which amounted the same area, since they were so close together, and therein lay the problem. He was having great difficulty getting the right spot and, after about 30mins farting around, he brought in a specialist and another technician for advice and then all 3 men were leaning on me, pressing, pulling and pushing against my boob while the main guy pushed and shoved to place the wire. How bloody ridiculous it all seemed as I was unceremoniously man-handled like a cow being branded. Thankfully the numbing agent they used was at least more successful than what I’d been given during the original biopsies but the whole ordeal was somewhat disconcerting all the same.
Next I was wheeled off to have a blue dye injected into my armpit to identify the sentinel lymph node from which they’d be removing a piece (during the surgery) for biopsy to verify whether the cancer had already entered my lymph system. A downright scary thought that I couldn't even let myself think about! I remember Vicky had said the dye injection for her had been incredibly uncomfortable but she must've had a different (less experienced?) person do hers because I hardly felt a thing, thank goodness.
Then it was back through the underground tunnels to BCCA to wait…..and wait…..for the surgery. At that point I suggested Lorne might as well go home until they called for him to pick me up. They were running late and it wasn’t until 3pm that Dr McF came through for a quick pre-surgery chat. "How are you doing? " he asked. "Well I'm a bit bored actually," I replied jokingly. I think I caught him off guard actually. "Well, let's see if we can't remedy that, shall we?" he smiled and a moment later a nurse came through to fetch my bed and wheeled me into the OR - 90 minutes later than scheduled. She apologized for the delay but oddly enough it was her I felt bad for, “I guess that makes it a long day for you,” I said sympathetically. Her response made me laugh out loud, “Yeah but hey, at least I don’t have cancer.” I hadn’t even thought of it that way. At least she was honest and direct - I liked her humour.
On July 23 we went back to see Dr McF for the results from the surgery. We were both very nervous so it was a big relief when he entered the room and started with, "the good news is the lymph node came back clear." Big sigh of relief. And the cancer they removed is indeed very early stage, so the prognosis is good and it's the best case scenario of a shitty situation. "However, " he added, "there were still some small signs of cancer in the margins of the tissue we removed, normally we prefer the margins be clear to make sure we got all the cancer." (This was sounding very similar to what Vicky had gone through with her surgery - only she ended up having two further operations before they got clear margins. Yikes.) "I'm afraid I might have to do a second surgery just to be sure we get everything. To be honest, if it was up to me I wouldn't go in again, I'm sure the radiation will take care of it, but I'm afraid the final decision on that isn't up to me. I'd like to discuss your case at a conference on August 8th and will let you know as soon as I can. I'm hoping we can avoid it but let's see in a couple of weeks."
So then began the wait....August 8th came and went with no news.....so I called his assistant the following week....still no decision, "It was bumped from the last agenda," she said. "It'll be discussed in this week's conference"....and so we waited...and waited. Trying to plan camping and visits to friends in Victoria and anticipating the delay in starting my radiation, around whether or not they'd be operating a second time.
Finally, about a month later and frustrated with still having no decision, we booked an appointment to meet Dr McF face-to-face. He walked into the room and immediately confirmed, "No need for a second surgery." Phew!!! Now why had that taken so long???...apparently because of summer vacations etc. Whatever - I was just glad we can keep moving forward rather than being set back several more weeks by needing more surgery. All good news!
Okay, next up, let's get those radiation treatments lined up and get this thing done with and out of the way. Heaven knows I haven't been able to put my mind to anything these past few months. It's a bugger really, I have all this time off, the weather's been gorgeous and yet I just can't focus on anything because of this hanging over me. I've hardly taken any photos, I still haven't gone through my pics from our UK trip - or even the Cuba trip we did back in January. I haven't worked out much, have applied for just a few jobs, haven't read any books, made any cards or done any other crafts. I haven't done much of anything really, except feel like I'm trapped in a bit of a daze. It's been several months of limbo and having this ominous sense of uncertainty hanging over us. At least now we can continue moving forward as we need to.
By the time my July 9th surgery day came around, I’d hardly had time to get over the jetlag of the flight home (which had been an interesting 9 hours next to the most intoxicated person on the plane - not Lorne, I might add ;-) A woman from Glasgow who confessed, in extremely slurred babble, that she was so afraid of flying she’d already got hideously drunk at the airport bar and then proceeded to plough through a further nine bottles of in-flight red wine,, endeavouring to engage me in slurry, non-sensical burble, before finally - and all too briefly - passing out in her drunken stupour.)
It was an early start at BCCA - a 7:30am check-in followed by approximately 6 hours of me sitting around in waiting rooms or being wheelchaired from one department to another - even through a little-known underground tunnel system that runs between the Jim Pattison Building at Vancouver General Hospital and the BCCA. That was quite unique actually, wheeling through the dusty, underground duct-lined guts of such important buildings. (And eerily reminiscent of a spooky Swedish/Danish co-production "The Kingdom" by Lars von Trier that Lorne and I watched a couple of years ago.)
After an initial chest x-ray, I was piled up with warm blankets and wheeled off for an ultrasound which took forever. The technician was trying to place wire markers in my breast to indicate both areas that were to be removed - which amounted the same area, since they were so close together, and therein lay the problem. He was having great difficulty getting the right spot and, after about 30mins farting around, he brought in a specialist and another technician for advice and then all 3 men were leaning on me, pressing, pulling and pushing against my boob while the main guy pushed and shoved to place the wire. How bloody ridiculous it all seemed as I was unceremoniously man-handled like a cow being branded. Thankfully the numbing agent they used was at least more successful than what I’d been given during the original biopsies but the whole ordeal was somewhat disconcerting all the same.
Next I was wheeled off to have a blue dye injected into my armpit to identify the sentinel lymph node from which they’d be removing a piece (during the surgery) for biopsy to verify whether the cancer had already entered my lymph system. A downright scary thought that I couldn't even let myself think about! I remember Vicky had said the dye injection for her had been incredibly uncomfortable but she must've had a different (less experienced?) person do hers because I hardly felt a thing, thank goodness.
Then it was back through the underground tunnels to BCCA to wait…..and wait…..for the surgery. At that point I suggested Lorne might as well go home until they called for him to pick me up. They were running late and it wasn’t until 3pm that Dr McF came through for a quick pre-surgery chat. "How are you doing? " he asked. "Well I'm a bit bored actually," I replied jokingly. I think I caught him off guard actually. "Well, let's see if we can't remedy that, shall we?" he smiled and a moment later a nurse came through to fetch my bed and wheeled me into the OR - 90 minutes later than scheduled. She apologized for the delay but oddly enough it was her I felt bad for, “I guess that makes it a long day for you,” I said sympathetically. Her response made me laugh out loud, “Yeah but hey, at least I don’t have cancer.” I hadn’t even thought of it that way. At least she was honest and direct - I liked her humour.
I came round at about 4:30pm, feeling woozy and achey, like I'd been punched hard in the chest. I vaguely heard the nurse phone Lorne and he arrived to pick me up a short time later. He gently helped me get dressed, which was a slow process because the smallest movement instantly made me want to throw up. I began crying a little as he slipped on my clothes (I’m really not sure why coming around from an anesthetic seems to make me all weepy). Once home I spent the next few hours in a daze on the living room couch. I really wanted to go to bed but simply couldn’t move without getting an overwhelming wave of nausea right away. And while I wasn't quite as sore from the op as I'd expected, I certainly felt like poop – trapped inside a spinny head, wobbly tummy and cheeks that kept preparing themselves for a good ol’ pukathon.
Around 10pm Lorne went to get the bed ready and, stubborn idiot that I am, I began hobbling toward the stairs, leaning on the couch for support. I didn’t get far before I yelled for him to get me a bowl (to throw up into) and quickly sat back down. He rushed downstairs, amazed that I was even trying to make my way to bed without his help. Thankfully I narrowly avoided hurling and several minutes later we were able to negotiate the stairs – sloooowly – and he helped me undress and slide into bed. He’d carefully laid out a bowl, towel, tissues and a glass of water for me. What a treasure!
On the whole I slept really well and wasn’t in too much pain but I still felt crappy from the anesthetic all the next day (need to keep that in mind for any future surgery, I obviously don’t do well on whatever it is they use to put you under). I took it relatively easy for the next couple of days, although I’m really not very good at sitting around and being ill, allowing myself to do nothing. I was still up and about and went out for walks but paid for it later with a sore reminder of having pushed myself a little too soon.
It's funny, the post-surgery soreness was really my first physical association with all this breast cancer malarky. Well, since I'd first noticed the lump becoming more prominent I guess. The rest had all seemed so surreal up to this point that the incisions, stitches and tenderness in my boob felt like "proof" that the doctors were right and I wasn't just making all this up. How odd that I should feel that way, but I did. For some reason it always surprises me to be taken seriously by doctors - I suspect it stems from my british upbringing, where you have to adamantly argue your case before a doctor will even listen, let alone consider sending you for further tests/treatment. Luckily canadian doctors are less skeptical and I could now see (and feel) the proof right there. The physical awareness allowed me to finally connect mentally with just what's going on.
For the next week or so I had to shower carefully so as not to soak the dressing on my boob and in my armpit, but from what I could see, I was relieved that neither scar was particularly big (between 1.5 and 2 inches) and the one on my boob is so far to the right-hand side, that you don’t really notice it from the front. Plus the surgeon did a great job and seems to have removed relatively little tissue so you can hardly tell. Yay, my bras will still fit! I knew my 36B's were in good hands :-)
By the weekend I was certainly feeling well enough for us still to go camping as planned. It was great to have a change of scenery and get out of the house, albeit I got told off by Lorne again when, tired of feeling so useless and feeble, I decided to lift the cooler full of beer from the van to the picnic table to offer him a beer. He was right, it was insane that I did that and I paid for it over the next few days.
I’m not sure if lifting the cooler had strained my incision/stitches but a few days later I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and noticed a slight infection starting in the stitches in my armpit area. A quick visit to a nearby walk-in clinic confirmed my suspicions and I was put on a 7-day course of Cephalexin antibiotics - all the headachey joy and nausea of a week-long hangover, without any of the drunky fun beforehand. Ugggh! I almost never take antibiotics and I felt dreadful on these but they did their job and staved off any further infection.
On July 23 we went back to see Dr McF for the results from the surgery. We were both very nervous so it was a big relief when he entered the room and started with, "the good news is the lymph node came back clear." Big sigh of relief. And the cancer they removed is indeed very early stage, so the prognosis is good and it's the best case scenario of a shitty situation. "However, " he added, "there were still some small signs of cancer in the margins of the tissue we removed, normally we prefer the margins be clear to make sure we got all the cancer." (This was sounding very similar to what Vicky had gone through with her surgery - only she ended up having two further operations before they got clear margins. Yikes.) "I'm afraid I might have to do a second surgery just to be sure we get everything. To be honest, if it was up to me I wouldn't go in again, I'm sure the radiation will take care of it, but I'm afraid the final decision on that isn't up to me. I'd like to discuss your case at a conference on August 8th and will let you know as soon as I can. I'm hoping we can avoid it but let's see in a couple of weeks."
So then began the wait....August 8th came and went with no news.....so I called his assistant the following week....still no decision, "It was bumped from the last agenda," she said. "It'll be discussed in this week's conference"....and so we waited...and waited. Trying to plan camping and visits to friends in Victoria and anticipating the delay in starting my radiation, around whether or not they'd be operating a second time.
Finally, about a month later and frustrated with still having no decision, we booked an appointment to meet Dr McF face-to-face. He walked into the room and immediately confirmed, "No need for a second surgery." Phew!!! Now why had that taken so long???...apparently because of summer vacations etc. Whatever - I was just glad we can keep moving forward rather than being set back several more weeks by needing more surgery. All good news!
Okay, next up, let's get those radiation treatments lined up and get this thing done with and out of the way. Heaven knows I haven't been able to put my mind to anything these past few months. It's a bugger really, I have all this time off, the weather's been gorgeous and yet I just can't focus on anything because of this hanging over me. I've hardly taken any photos, I still haven't gone through my pics from our UK trip - or even the Cuba trip we did back in January. I haven't worked out much, have applied for just a few jobs, haven't read any books, made any cards or done any other crafts. I haven't done much of anything really, except feel like I'm trapped in a bit of a daze. It's been several months of limbo and having this ominous sense of uncertainty hanging over us. At least now we can continue moving forward as we need to.
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