Follow Up Visit

I had my follow up visit with Dr. Cooper yesterday. It did not go as planned. I'm recalling my words when all this started: "It's going to be muddy and lumpy and stitched together."

1) My incision is infected. Dr. Cooper looked at it, then donned his latex gloves and told me to lay back on the table. That's never a good sign. (WARNING: If you have a weak stomach, skip ahead a few sentences!!) He dabbed at it with some gauze, then proceeded to root around in there with a wooden stick wrapped in gauze to clean up some of the fluid. Did it hurt? Not a bit. Was it gross? Absolutely. With the wooden stick, he pushed some gauze into the incision and by "into the incision" I mean he went about 1 inch in. Then he taped me up and said he was putting me on antibiotics for a few days. By a few days, he meant 10. The antibiotic he gave me was Levaquin. I sure hope they work soon. Those suckers were expensive! And if you've ever been on it and experienced any side effects, WOW.........I feel your pain.

2) More surgery. Yep. You read that right. More surgery. It seems the tumor was larger than he expected. He makes an educated guess at the size of the tumor when he looks at the mammograms, ultrasounds and MRI scans. But seeing the actual thing is what counts. Once he got in there, he saw it was larger than he thought. The best I can remember (it's all a bit of a blur today.....I have an ear infection and things are a little fuzzy right now), he said he took the entire tumor, but was unable to take a lot of the surrounding tissue. He said he took a chunk, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't take as much as he needed to because it would disfigure the breast. I guess once things shift around and resettle, you can go back in and take more. And that's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to be absolutely sure he got the majority of the cancer. The tissue he takes on the next round could be completely benign. But it could also be cancer. And if it is, it could/will change my chemo regimen.

3) Type and stage: I forgot to ask. I completely forgot to ask. And no, I'm not calling them back to ask them because at this point, it means nothing to me. All it will make me do is look it up on the internet and try to figure out what they will do next or scare the life out of me. And as Dr. Cooper told me on visit #2, looking on the internet for information is dangerous. He said you have to ask yourself 2 questions when looking for information on the internet:

1: Does it fit, and 2: Do you agree? Does it fit your exact situation? Probably not. And you have to decide if you agree with what you're reading. Good advice.

I trust Dr. Cooper with my life. Literally. I understand why he has to do more surgery. My head tells me it all makes sense. But my heart is not in it at this point. I don't want to have more surgery. Again, it's not my preference. But it's reality for me at this point. And hey, there are positives to this step backwards:

1. If I start chemo in the next couple of weeks, I could feel horrible on vacation (in 39 days....not that I have a countdown app on my phone or anything).

2. The later chemo starts the more it goes into fall and winter. And maybe chemo hats and headscarves are cuter in the fall and winter.

3. More pain pills! (Just kidding Momma!)

Does anybody out there watch Criminal Minds? (No, this is not random rambling on my part). Don't you just love Penelope? One of my favorite quotes of hers is, 'This job has taken away my ability to laugh.' I don't want to lose my ability to laugh through this cancer. I refuse to allow it to steal my joy. Satan does a good enough job of that. And speaking of that, when did we decide that he has a right to do that and 'that's just the way life is'? Listen up people....we ARE allowed to intimidate the kingdom of darkness and it's high time we make the enemy sorry he messed with us. God's word tells us we are to become armed and dangerous. And as my friend Beth Moore says (I'm not really her friend because we've never met, but if we had, I'd like to think we'd be friends), "Believing God's word is active and alive in me is where the rubber meets the road." (Do any of my Old Hickory friends think of Katherine Lane when they read that?)

God's timing is intentional. Yes, it is a setback. No, it's not my preference. But as my least favorite saying in the whole world goes: it is what it is. "Both faith and freedom will emerge from deliberate acts of the will to shift our focus from all that begs to differ to the great and glorious truth of the living God." Could anybody out there use a little faith and freedom? I could.

Believe God. Let nothing make you quit.