What a day

Well...I had one heckuva looong day today. Had to be at the hospital for all the pre-op/pre-admission testing at 10:20 this morning. Let me just tell you, that was such an experience...a frustrating one. Stuck in purgatory for more than three hours while I waited to be herded like a cow on to the next station where I would be poked and prodded...gotten ready for this surgery coming up. Waited over an hour before my name was even called out.

The woman that sat next to my husband and I had us in stitches for a good part of the morning, however. She kept huffing and puffing, growling, and grumbling...She had been there since around the same time as we got there. Ultimately, it got to be sort of a joke, albeit sarcastic and riddled with underlying animosity and aggravation over the disorganization of the whole place...I could smell my nerves and they singed and cooked within my skull, the longer the time stretched out; told Ed that I was getting ready to get snappy and surly on someone pretty damn quick. Many of the staff members were skulking around, doing nothing much in particular, all the while, this waiting area was being packed in with more people by the minute....like sardines, we all were.
I said to Ed that pretty soon there would be an uprising among the masses...a mutiny. I could tell that Ed was ready to snap on someone. I joked that I would lodge a complaint with the powers that be...wherever they may be...obviously not there, not this day...I also said to Ed that there would be hell to pay if they were all holed up somewhere on a two hour lunch break while all four hundred of us peons were waiting in suspended time and missing lunch; told him he ought to go get a stinky ol' Italian hoagie and smell up the joint good for 'em...

Anyway, 2:oo came and went, and we were free at last to move on. Had to choke down lunch and make up for all the missed sodas (I am a hard core soda addict...gotta have some vices) before 2:30 or so, when I had to be up to see the surgeon to discuss the surgery more...and of course, and at long last, to get my scan results!

The GREAT news first: My brain MRI was clear (wasn't too worried about that one), and for the most part, the CT was clear. A couple of little nodules showed up in my lungs, but the doc said that they were "non-specific"...Another CT is recommended in 3 months or so to make sure they don't grow or multiply. Aside from that...ALL CLEAR!! I am still, right now at least, a stage IIIb. I am so relieved...and of course, ecstatic.

As for the isolated limb perfusion, the date has been bumped up. I will have to go in on November 3rd now...Still really scared of the complications of this whole deal, but after I read that path report from the stinkin' subQ that was removed, all I could think was that I had to make sure that I stay a stage III...and this is the only way I can think of right now to give me the best odds at that. That stinkin' ol' subQ was within 1 millimeter of the deep margin. All the way down to the muscle fascia...and there was lymphovascular invasion...That just sounded bad to me, even before he explained it better. And of course, I cannot forget the little babies that this sucker spawned after it took up residence in my upper thigh...

Also...found out that the doc will have to remove the deeper lymph nodes; the ones higher up into my abdomen. He will be going in there to access those vessels for the perfusion, and to be safe, he is going to pluck out a few more nodes...Man. Another thing to wait with baited breath for the results....

Aaahhh, well. Guess it is going to be a hectic as hell couple of weeks ahead...I do know one thing though. I will NOT be in the hospital on my birthday this coming Wednesday. We will be hitting the road for our Halloween Camping trip. I plan on having a blast with my family and friends, knowing that this whole mess will NOT stop me from that goal..and maybe even bust out a couple of drinks in the evening around the campfire! AFter the kiddos are in bed of course ;)