Day after surgery

Hi, I’m home now, thanks for all the good wishes, it helps more than you know. It was an unexpected overnight stay at the hospital (and my boys didn’t want to leave me there), but it was fine. They found me a bed in a room with 3 very sick ladies (one had emergency surgery for a perforated bowel, one had some kind of internal drain being put in for her liver, and the other is having a 4-day epidural to manage her pain following her surgery). Really puts things in perspective and made me feel quite well off (I was the only one able to get out of bed to brush my teeth this morning).

As for my surgery, in addition to the tumor, they took out 10-12 lymph nodes. That’s why I needed the drain, which stays with me for 5-7 days. I won’t have any further information on the stage of the cancer or if it has spread or not until my follow-up appointment in a couple of weeks.

I’m very sore and quite tired, but it’s only day 2 and I’m happy to be home. Thanks again for all your good wishes.

Beth

Surgery

Hello All,

Beth had her surgery today and all went well. Beth’s spirits are good.

As a precaution they put in a drain and as such they have admitted Beth to ensure it is working properly and show her how to look after it. We expect she will get out of the hospital tomorrow morning.

Carter, Zach and I will go visit her this evening. I will try and send another update later tonight.

Thanks,

Brad

Mexico was great!

Had a great time in Ixtapa (Las Brisas) - the Canadian Road Builders Conference, sponsored by Manitoba Heavy Construction. Guess what field my husband's in... the conference was so well run, great activities, awesome surroundings, excellent food... I had a really good time, rested up, got my work out of my system, and prepared for surgery (scheduled for the day after we got back). Quick stop in Toronto on the way back to visit Calem, Eric and Liam (and their parents), and then back to reality.

Telling my friends

How do you tell your friends? I'm 43, I eat healthy, I run, I don't smoke (other than a couple of years in my early 20's), I drink red wine ;), I live in Winnipeg (come on, there is no pollution in the prairies!!). I have a successful career and a great boss. This might have been the hardest thing - blurting out to people that 'I have breast cancer' - no one expects to hear it, you catch them totally off guard.

My lake friends - the ones we party with - snowmobile, ATV, fishing, boating...

My Nancy that I run with...

My sister...

My Vancouver friends Jan and Denise (and yes, Duane too) ...

My dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law...

My high school friends (yes, a group of us still get together, its only been 26 yrs since we graduated) were getting together Friday night so I blurted it out in the planning e-mail. Shocked them, but at least we could get together and have a drink Friday night...

My work friends - another tough one - I'm in a local office of 50 people, some of whom I've known for the whole 20+ years I've worked there. Plus lots of close friends in our Vancouver and California offices...

Okay, I'm feeling blessed for having all these friends to tell...

Telling the boys

How to tell the boys (Zach is 14, Carter is 11)... The day after I got the diagnosis, Zach was going away snowboarding for 3 days. We decided to wait until he got back to tell them. Saturday afternoon - we are sitting around chatting, so I say 'I need to tell you guys something'. Zach immediately said 'I don't think I want to hear this' and tried to walk away. I told him to sit down and then I told them. Carter asked lots of questions, Zach got up and walked away half way through my answers. I had to let them deal with it in their own ways, that would be okay. We hadn't told any of our friends and family yet, we wanted to tell the boys first.

Diagnosis

Doctor called today - 2 days before my appointment - "Can you come in today to see me". So I called Brad at work and he came to pick me up... By now we had no idea what to expect. If you google 'lump in armpit' you find worse things than Breast Cancer, so when she said those words, it was like - well not good news, but not the worst it could be. She drew us a picture and explained it all (who knew there was breast tissue in your underarm - apparently its the 'tail' of your breast). Anyway, next step is surgery - normally there is a decision here of lumpectomy (take out the tumour) vs mastectomy (lose the whole thing) - but in my case since it was so far to the side the lumpectomy was the logical choice. First available surgery was March 2 - we had planned to be in Mexico then... what to do... Quick decision - Mexico won -we will do the trip and then surgery March 9th.

Still waiting...

Went for the ultrasound (again) on Feb. 4th. The doctor said 'did they tell you that depending what we see, we may do a biopsy'? I'm thinking they better do a biopsy after all this waiting!!

Sure enough, he didn't like whatever he saw on the ultrasound, so he did the core needle biopsy, took 4 samples (yes there was local freezing), and back to waiting. Follow up with the doctor was scheduled for a week later. No hints...