Monday 2 March 2015

Bye bye lymph nodes

As expected the surgery to get my lymph nodes out was done a tad suddenly. I had talked to my surgeon's assistant and we arranged a surgery date of April 1st. The next day, Friday Feb. 20th a message was left on my phone while I was on my way to the cancer agency for my herceptin.
It was my surgeon's office.......some O.R. time had opened up on Feb 24th and they were holding the time for me. Would that work?
Sure.

I have this policy about my treatment that started back when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. When in doubt, just agree. "Sure, pull my wisdom teeth, I just have to be able to go to my cake decorating class at 7 p.m."

If a time really doesn't work, for example, the first surgery date suggested was March 6th, um, no, I have to be on a plane to Montreal on the 13th, then say no. If there is nothing either truly life changing or just too much fun to pass up, just go with it, especially if it is a short wait time. I already have to plan my life around enough medical treatments, if I can cut down on wait times my life just goes more smoothly.

So, yes, last Tuesday my lymph nodes were taken out and the bump on my chest wall was cut out some more. Overall I feel much better with the lymph nodes gone than I did before even with a couple of incisions and a yucky drain sticking out of me.
Hands down the worst part of lymph node surgery is the drain. I live in fear that I'll do something dumb, forget it is there and accidentally yank it out in the middle of a store. Gross.
Aside from that it is no big deal. There pain has been pretty minimal and I haven't taken any pain killers since Saturday, day 4 post surgery.

Ok, I do admit that I do blow things off a bit........I think this would be item #11 on my 10 things list, but then it would be 11 things and then I'd have to change the title and then it would just be a pain in the butt. Let's just call this an addendum to the list.
I will down play things on occasion, partly just as a way to deal with them. Eventually I will admit if something really sucks, but in general it is way easier to deal with things if I don't build anything up to much. In a good year I have 50 medical appointments. If I made those into big deals then the last 15 extra appointments I have dealt with in the last few months would just make my brain explode.

This whole surgery thing, however, isn't one of those things I am just blowing off. It really hasn't been a big deal. A big deal was the radiation to my skull. And I don't think anything will be a big deal until it can surpass that radiation in suckitude level. Hopefully I have to wait a long time for that.

Enough blather, it is 10 degrees and sunny. Time to sit and enjoy the sun and wait til Monday when the gross, nasty drain comes out 🌞