Surgery #2

Today is surgery to remove the lymph nodes in my left armpit and my company is much more than it was last time. In addition to Linda and Carol from the last surgery, my sisters Susie and Bonnie both drive down from Indianapolis area to be with me. Susan Cox, Laura Phillips who are friends from Scouts and church show up as well. The surgery preparation nurses limit it to three visitors in the room with me at a time and the crew gets scolded when they are passing each other as one group leaves my room and the other enters for making too much noise in the pre-surgery area. Brian Ebel, the associate minister minister from St. Paul headed down to see me, but landed up at the wrong Norton hospital, so the senior minister Tom Grieb saw me later in the day.
My surgery was scheduled for 10:00 and they told me to be at the hospital by 7:30. I was prompt and they had me in a hospital gown on a gurney at 7:45 AM. Now I get the 'opportunity' to wait until after noon to be taken back for surgery. This also is my first day off of work in a saga that is going to include at least 5 weeks off of work.
Waking up from surgery was a much less painful experience this time than it was a few weeks ago, I am glad that I talked to the anesthesiologist about waking up in pain last time. I am the proud owner (okay really renter) of my own morphine pump for pain control and get to enjoy the comforts of Hotel Norton for the night. Rita spends the night in a chair in the room to keep me company and watch out for me. I feel so much better after this surgery than I did the last time. I am able to eat the first night and had no trouble with nausea. After the first surgery it was a few days before I could keep anything down. The pain is not bad and the ride was just easier in general.
I am also the proud owner of a tube sticking in a hole under my armpit, draining the fluid that accumulates post surgery. Said tube is going to be around for awhile and will be the cause of some problems, besides being a royal pain in the backside to deal with. It still beats the dickens out of the problems that I had with swelling after the sentinel lymph node procedure. I had a lot of swelling under my arm and right along the incision line, it was very painful. I had to hold my arm out at about a 45 degree angle to keep from putting pressure on the swollen incision.
I had assumed that they would individually remove lymph nodes, but in fact they just cut a big hunk of me out: I could hide a tennis ball in the gaping hole.

Scouts

I decided to accompany the Scout troop on a camping trip this weekend for a couple of reasons. First, they needed me to pull the trailer up to the Little Miami River (north of Cincinnati) and secondly because Boy Scouts has remained a solid anchor in my life since Chris died and life must go on. This is also the time to tell the rest of my friends that I have cancer, now that I know for sure I will have an ongoing battle of some description.
I am not physically able to join the guys on the canoe trip because of my shoulder surgery just over a week ago, but Steve Cullen stays in camp with me to keep me company. I decide to tell the boys tonight about my cancer, they are a big part of my life after all. When I get them together after dinner I tell them the whole story as much as I know it, withholding any information about long term survival rates. I promise to answer any questions for them that I can and that I will never lie to them in my responses. I also tell tham that I will keep them updated on any new developments. That was a tough conversation to have with the boys.

Stage 3a

Today is my meeting with Dr. McMasters and Carol joins me for the visit. As I feared, he tells me that the cancer has spread to one of the two lymph nodes and to the lymphatic channel. Oh he**! On the positive side (pretty ironic to have a positive aspect to moving from a stage 1b cancer to a stage 3a disease) he says that it is very encouraging that the cancer was microscopic, in fact they had to use special stains to detect it under the microscope and that it was only evident in one of the two lymph nodes that they removed. All of a sudden my chance of five year survival just dropped to 70%. The next step is surgical removal of the remaining lymph nodes (axillary dissection) in my armpit and decide on whether or not to pursue interferon treatment. Surgery is set for May 21st.
Rita comes over to the house as soon as I call her on the way home and spends the afternoon with me. When I call Steve Cullen to tell him, he immediately leaves work and comes over to comfort me. My friends and my faith may be the only way that I survive this disease.

Omens

This may be kind of an odd post to many people, but it accurately reflects how I feel. I am scared to death because I am convinced, despite their 90 to 95% probability, that I will find out tomorrow that the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes. Two major reasons for this belief:
First: I haven't gotten any kind of a sign from Chris to make me believe that everything is going to be okay. I pray and I talk to Chris about everything important in my life and I always get some kind of a signal givning me guidance. Sometimes it is very concrete and sometimes it is only a warm and fuzzy feeling, but it is always there. I have prayed and talked to Chris multiple times a day throughout this ordeal and nothing.
Secondly, my late sister's husband Mitch told me that he felt Jennie's presence with him around the time that I went to see the dermatologist and he couldn't understand why her presence would be felt then. I believe that Jennie was helping Mitch to prepare her kids, Becca and Matthew, to deal with cancer again. I am very close to Becca and Matt, I couldn't love them any more unless they were mine.

Surgery

Here I am, 54 years old, and I am facing my first surgery beyond having wisdom teeth extracted. Yeah, I am scared. Linda comes down from Fishers to be with me for surgery, Carol stops by briefly and Steve McClave keeps popping his head in and out during the day. What a neat friend to have! I remember waking up from surgery and the first person that I saw was Steve talking to the recovery nurses asking when he could bring me a cup of coffee. My stars did I hurt when I woke up from surgery, my pain level wasn't tolerable until after I woke up from a nap at home. On top of that I was an emotional train wreck because of other issues. I have a follow up visit on Friday May 11th with Dr. McMasters to get the biopsy results from the sentinel node biopsy. It will be be a long and frightening eight days.