For the last four holiday seasons, I’ve felt grateful for my family because of Mike’s health. This season was a little different because of mine. Don’t worry I’ll get through this, it may not be as easy as we thought but I’ll survive. I was very worried about Mike though. He continued to lose weight and was in pain a lot.
After spending a quiet Christmas with my family Mike had a follow up with the surgeon on December 29 and the oncologist wanted me to have an echo-cardiogram done because one of the chemo medicines can cause problems. Since we were going back to KU Med Center to see Mike’s doctor we set the echo up there as well.
So that was three times across the state in three weeks. Not the first time we’d done this and I’m sure probably not the last. John again went along to deliver a present to a girl who lives in the Kansas City area.
The surgeon said Mike was healing and the echo-cardiogram was an easy test. The test results were up when I got back and besides some mild thickening of the left ventricle, they were normal, as far as I could see.
Sometime around the first of January, I noticed some swelling and heat in my breast and called the surgeon. An ultrasound was set up in Colby and if there was a seroma I also had an appointment with the surgeon in Colby to have it drained. The Ultrasound was on Wednesday, January 3rd. The tumor board met that evening and the surgeon was to call on Thursday to tell me the results.
I watched as the technician did the ultrasound, it looked to me like there was a seroma there, but she wouldn’t confirm or deny. And I hadn’t gotten those results when the surgeon from KU called.
It was around 3:00 pm on Thursday, January 4. The tumor board had said since there was cancer in two of the three sentinel nodes and that one was .9 cm that the axillary node dissection would be the best course of treatment.
Had she seen the ultrasound or gotten a report. No, she hadn’t seen it but if there was a seroma, as long as it wasn’t too painful, she wanted me to wait and let her drain it, so we didn’t increase the chance of infection. OK, I’d see her on January 11 for surgery.
Odin contemplates why life can be so complicated.
I went to tell my parents about the second surgery. I had been feeling so good and there was a high school basketball game in town, so I decided to go take some pictures. I went to the JV boys game to shoot some pictures. After that was over I went out and fed the horses and went to the varsity games to listen to the pep band and take pictures.
When I got home that night I was feeling pretty rough, like I’d been run over by a horse. But that was pretty normal when I hadn’t taken pictures for a while, so I took some of the painkillers from surgery and went to bed.
I was exhausted and felt like I’d been run over by a horse for the next three days. On Sunday, the third day, I called the surgeon at KU worried that it might delay the surgery. She told me to go see my primary care physician the next day. Actually, she told me to go to an Urgent Care Center, but we don’t have those in rural western Kansas, so I went to the walk-in Clinic the next day.
I didn’t have the flu, probably a sinus infection and I was put on antibiotics and on to surgery. This was Monday.
I had an appointment with the oncologist in Hays on Wednesday on the way to Kansas City for surgery. He called the surgeon and they discussed my treatment, changed my antibiotics, and sent us on our way to Kansas City for surgery.
It would be much less complicated to Sail Away.
Onward. A second surgery.
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