5 Day Update

I arrived at the hospital at 5:00 am on Thursday the 12th. They took me back and began prep and all the set up around 5:20. At this point things moved quickly. They hooked up the IV and all the other necessary weird surgery tubes and apparatuses like a well oiled machine. I, on the other hand, cried a lot. And although I was as ready as I could possibly be and ready to get this thing removed, I honestly was scared. They gave me an epidural and at that point I knew I did not want be awake for any more of the surgical process. Apparently it started about 7:30 am and ended around 2:00 pm. I cannot verify that information because I was gladly asleep.

Waking up is the strangest experience; you can hear before you can actually open your eyes. When you are finally able to open your eyes, things slowly come into focus, similar to the way it is projected in movies. I was very disoriented when I woke up, but obviously happy to be awake.

After they took all my vitals and monitored me for awhile, my surgeon came to speak with me. Dr. Kong said things went very well. In addition to the surgery for the tumor she took 3 lymph nodes. The preliminary testing showed 2 nodes were clean and 1 had cancer cells. Everything has been sent to pathology and they will have all the specifics in 5-7 business days. Nothing will be determined until the actual results are back.

I got to my room around 3:30 pm. All of the nurses staff were amazing and it made completely worth it to go out in the freezing cold of Milwaukee.

The first days after were not as bad as I thought although I did not have much use of my arms. They left the epidural in for the first 24 hours and I felt pretty good. After it was removed the story was a bit different... Each day is slowly getting better. Friday I had a few different visitors and flowers to cheer up my room. Thank you!!!

I was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon. At that point my parents went home and my sister Elisabeth stayed to take first watch. She will stay until Thursday and Lora will come up to replace her for a few days. At that point we will play it by ear (finally a benefit to being the youngest of 6--lots of people to help :). Physical Therapy starts next week and it will be 3-4 weeks before I can drive, and longer for full range of motion.

Tomorrow is a follow up with one of the surgeons to see how I am recovering. Once pathology results are in I will meet with an oncologist to discuss treatment.

Calling and/or texting has been more difficult than I planned, but I hope to be able to communicate more directly soon. In the mean time I wanted to update you here. Thank you for reading and for you thoughts and prayers. Thank you also for the encouragement and support. Seriously, thank you. I could not walk through all of this alone.