We saw Dr. Brian yesterday for the first time since my surgery. She was her usual, cheerful self. She gave my surgical site a brief look-see, said it looked just fine, and we discussed some of the after/side effects from the surgery. She is also convinced that the arm swelling/rash was a reaction to the preoperative surgical soap that was used on me, ChloraPrep, mainly because of the sharp delineation of the rash on my forearm. So I am adding that product to the list of medical stuff my body does not tolerate.
We discussed the question of when I could return to work and when I'm going to start chemo. We decided that this week would be a good time to go ahead and get the chemo port installed. I'd been dreading this for a while, because I thought I would have a port similar to the one my mother had, a Hickman catheter, which is both internal and external and which requires daily flushing and cleaning. I discovered, however, that I will have a completely internal port, similar (if not identical) to the one pictured here that is virtually maintenance free. This site has several high-quality photographs of what the port looks like and how chemotherapy is administered through it. So Dr. Brian will do the outpatient surgery tomorrow morning for the insertion of the port; she said that she does a vertical incision and makes every effort to position the incision so that the scar will eventually be hidden by a bra strap and thus not readily visible even if I am wearing a tank top or similarly revealing clothing. I think that this is very cool and am once again happy that I have a female surgeon because I doubt that most men would think about stuff like this. So because of the port installation, I will not be able to go back to work until next week (I was hoping to go back at the end of this week, but I guess it's better to get all this stuff done ASAP). I have an appointment with Dr. Heistein's office next Monday to have the first post-surgery filling of my tissue expander, and the same day, I will see Dr. Krekow (my oncologist) for the first time. (I've been trying to come up with a way to tell you how to pronounce her name, and the best I can do is that it rhymes with "BAKE-oh".) So hopefully I will be able to return to work on Tuesday of next week.
I got a copy of the pathology report from my surgery, and I have to say that it upset me quite a bit to read it. I'm not really sure why other than the fact that it doesn't sound positive (e.g., the size of the main tumor in my breast, the description of the tumor in the lymph nodes, the proximity of the tumor to my skin, etc.), and it's very difficult to read such a clinical description of the dissection and examination of a large, intimate part of one's body.
I finished reading the Breast Cancer Survival Manual, and I think it's a very good book. I found 99% of it to be comprehensible, and it all seems sensible. I highly recommend it and am now going to pass it on to Kyle; I hope he will read it. Since I'm now out of reading material, I just asked Kyle if we could go to the library this afternoon. Hopefully that will cheer me up a bit. Peace, Jody.
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