August 5, 2010

Good news, everybody!

(In my best professor voice, 'cause we've been watching Futurama reruns)

Good day/Bad day?: Good (I kind of gave it away in the title...)

Yeah, it was a busier day than most so far, which is still not that busy. My 2 big things were going in to get 2 of my drains out--to be honest, I was kind of dreading it and thinking it would hurt like the dickens, but again, really not a whole lot of sensation in the area! Thank you to Mary for offering a hand to sqeeze even though it turned out not to be needed. The other was getting my pathology reports from the surgeon today. Few highlights: the L side had no cancer found at all, the R tumor was a little smaller than anticipated (2.2x1.7cm), clear margins all around, no other R side tumors, and of all 22 nodes on that side, the only one with cancer spread was the very one they biopsied initially. The "suspicious" ones from the scans were enlarged but had no cancer! I was fully prepared for 3 or more nodes involved. That's really good to feel a lot more solid in not doing radiation after chemo, because I was concerned about the side effects of the radiation on top of taking out my nodes on that side. I'll still sit down and hear them out, but I'm really leaning away from radiation, too.

It's interesting, because for some reason I couldn't help myself from going in the direction of thinking, "Should I have had as much taken off as I did?", both with the nodes and the other side. I'm over it and know that I made the best decision I could with the info I had, and I'm greatly reducing my risk of recurrence and a new primary cancer. Still interesting that second guessing can be such an automatic thing...

Another one of these times I'll talk, too, about what this experience has given me to think about for Mom's course with breast cancer. Tonight, though, Mary & I stayed up a little later watching a George Clooney movie and it's time for bed (2 more good things!).

Tomorrow, looking forward to breakfast with my sistas and maybe another visitor or 2. Thank you for all the great messages of support that keep coming!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Two of my favorite things: clear margins and George Clooney. Booyah!

ee said...

Yeah!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

If this were Facebook I would triple like your pathology report!

Ben said...

Just a clarification. That is a different Ben up there. George Clooney is pretty good, but not one of my favorite things. I'm more of a Chevy Chase guy...

Amber said...

I'm so happy that you've gotten some good news, and I'm sending you my good thoughts in the hopes that you'll get nothing but good news from here on out! Your strength and bravery in the face of it all have been very inspiring to me and I feel like maybe this is the most important things in tough times... to not let it kick you when you're down...so keep your chin up lady! It seems like you've got great family and friend support, but if there's ever anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask...
-Amber

Anonymous said...

I have renamed my favorite summer libation. Farmer's market raspberry mojito is now called..."Clear margins mojito". Cheers to you!

Sue said...

wonderful news Jenny & Ben - see you at the b-day