Surgery #2 - or Watch Barbara Pitch a Fit

Show up at the place at 6 and the first thing I do is ask what time my surgery is scheduled for. They say 1:30. I start yelling and threw my pen down on the floor, along with my newspaper, and yelled that I had to lay around and wait 10 days ago for 6-1/2 hours and by God I wasn't going to do it again. I told them I would come back at 10. They got the head nurse to get me out of there because I was scaring everyone and she assured me that she would speak to the doctor to see if they could get me in earlier. I am still IRATE.


I show the nurse my 5 inch long bruise from the last time and ask her if they can do better than that this time. She has this excellent nurse do it and I didn't feel anything except a little sting when she gave me a little local before she put the big needle in (they use a HUGE one in the OR that's about as big around as pencil lead).


At 8 they come to take me to the Breast Center for the needle loc (see previous post). They crunch me in the mammo and the radiologist said there are no micro calcifications so no needle loc. YAY!!!!! And a big double YAY because no needle in the nipple!! So I'm back in my gurney at 9 waiting. I told them NO ATAVAN so I am aware as I wait. Since my last surgery, however, they installed TV's in the pre op rooms so Marty and I watched Supernatural. Then the doc came in and told me he would get me in earlier. He said after he finished this one I was next. Well, that one took him about 1-1/2 hours but at least I didn't have to wait 6-1/2 hours. So they get me on the table and it is FREEZING in there. They give me a blanket and that's all she wrote until I woke up in the recovery room shivering so hard it woke me up. Perfect timing as the nurse was just covering me with two warm blankets.



They brought Marty in and we hung around for another 30-45 minutes so they were sure I was OK. I felt fine except the booby was a lot sorer that last time. I asked for some ice and that helped. We took off and got home around 3. I felt fine, other than the sore boob. I continued to put ice on it and finally, around 6 I was forced to concede that 2 surgeries in 10 days was more than I had bargained for and took and extra strength Tylenol.



I took 2 of those each day for two days then I was back to normal.

After surgery, the oncologist had ordered a PET scan for me on the following Monday AM. If you have never had one, listen up, and you will try to do whatever you can to get out of doing one. This is another test with a NEEDLE. First thing they do is email me instructions on what I can't eat or drink for the 24 hours preceding the test.

No carbohydrates
No sugar
No caffeine
No Nicotine

So what the hell am I supposed to eat or drink? But dig this: Marty's band is at Jimmy B's Sunday from 2-7:30. Can anyone even remotely conceive of being at Jimmy B's all afternoon and NOT having a beer? It's un-American!! Well, I did it, grudgingly. Had my last cigarette around 3. That was the best I could do.

Get to the place. They put me in this recliner and I am pretty much prone. They start the IV of glucose (she was not too bad) then they stick this radioactive stuff in you. Then they tell you to lay there for 50 (FIFTY) minutes and don't move, read, think. Oh man, this is pure torture for me.

They had one sign on the wall that said something about how the tech could not stay close to you after you get injected so don't take it personally. I read and re-read it then I started doing anagrams with the letters. I was basically going beserk. Finally she came and got me and took me into the bathroom, telling me to pee it out of me. Signs in the john said to stay away from pregnant women and little kids for 12 hours. Nice, huh?

So now I'm on my back and the tube is a LOT smaller than the MRI tube. Having panic attacks so I try to go to my happy place. This test is blessedly quiet but it, too, is an all-or-nothing test. Meaning, if I move we start over. It consisted of tests lasting 3,4,6,8,7,11,9,etc, minutes between which I could move. She would tell me how long then I would try to count backwards to give myself something to do and so I would know how much longer. Oh this was pure, unadulterated torture. This test lasted about 45 minutes. After they give you OJ or apple juice and a graham cracker, I grabbed the juice and got the hell out of Dodge. Thank God that was over with.

So I stop in at the Breast Center to see if my path is back and it is: not one cancer cell anywhere. So he got it all the first time. YAY!! Now we wait to see if I have to do chemo.

Have an appointment with the onc in three days, on Thursday and the test should be in by then. I go in and he tells me the score is 17. Low is 0-19, intermediate is 20-33 and above that means chemo for sure. So he tells me that my risk of recurrance rate is 14%. If I do chemo, it goes down 3%, if I do a hormone drug it goes down 4%. So hating drugs as much as I do, I figure I can do this with diet and supplements. He rolls his eyes at me. I tell him I will consider the hormone drug but chemo is out. So he tells me that a couple of spots on my jaw lit up on the PET scan and he wants me to see an ENT. Just what I need, another lousy body part failing me. Make that appointment for 6/7.

Next up - radiation. That appointment is on the 7th as well.