Lumpectomy Day

Well, Dave and I are up and out the door and off to the Women's Pavilion where they'll inject radioactive dye into my right breast. They do this first (at 7:30 AM) and then I'm transported over to the hospital for the lumpectomy and sentinel node removal. Dave is right with me, wearing the caregiver shoes now, and he's doing a great job. He does try really hard to be funny and sometimes it works and other times I just have to tell him, "Still not funny." But, he's there with me before I go into surgery and is trying to keep things "light" with all the nurses and staff. I find out that instead of the day surgery, I'll be having my procedure done in the main surgery area of the hospital (at Gwinnett Medical Center), and I'm not being put under with a twilight anesthetic, nope, they are knocking me out, all the way...o.k. by me, I'd rather not know what's going on to be honest.

During the lumpectomy, the doctor tells me that not only will I have the radioactive dye in there (I'm assuming to find the cancer), but they also put in a blue dye right before the surgery...like it'll give my skin a blue hue...I'm very fair skinned, so, great, now tomorrow I'll look like a Smurf? We shall see....

The procedure takes about an hour and a half and while I'm in the post-op room, I have some kind of allergic reaction. The nurses think it's because they had to give me some morphine to kill some of the pain right after surgery, or maybe it had something to do with the anesthesia...they don't know for sure. I'm already allergic to penicillin and sulfa drugs, so I guess I may have something else to add to my list.

So, after some Benadryl and sips of Sprite and a few crackers, I'm given the green light to go home. A nice lady came in to give me a pillow to put between my arm and my breast and to give me a "Breast Cancer Package", which has a very informative manual that explains EVERYTHING you'd ever want to know...Dave was jealous he didn't get any of this kind of special treatment when he was going through his horrible chemo and radiation treatments. I told him I just got lucky and got the right kind of cancer.

Now, it's in the early afternoon and we're on our way home. My mom and sister were at the hospital and came to the house for a while. My niece, Sarah, came to spend a few days/nights with us (she had done this too in the past with Dave's chemo rounds) and we appreciate the help so much. Our boys take a lot of energy and they love having their cousin there to be with them. So, we're at the house for a while, I'm in a little pain, but taking the Lortab on schedule and resting...so far, so good.