New Beginnings

Well, tomorrow’s the big day….6 hours of surgery to get any remaining dumb cancer cells out of my body forever.  I’m not going to lie….I’m incredibly anxious at the thought of tomorrow’s surgery and subsequent recovery, but I’m trying my best to stay busy and not think about it too much.  I've even titled this blog entry in honor of the start of my next phase of this journey (tomorrow is also the first day of spring which is a happy coincidence – thanks to my dear friend Janice for that reminder!).  

Everything has been going very well since my last blog post when I got my PET scan results.  I actually got a call from my radiation oncologist a few days after the PET telling me she was amazed by my results – apparently my originally 9cm tumor has shrunk to non-detectable on the PET (the PET can only pick up cancers that are 5mm+).  I’ll find out for sure what is left in my breast and lymph nodes when I get my post-surgery pathology report, but that seemed like a pretty good response to me! I did manage to come down with whatever cold/fever-type thing has been going around during the middle of last week, but my surgeon put me right on antibiotics so I felt better pretty quickly.

The state of Wisconsin even seemed to be playing its part in sending me good pre-surgery omens this past weekend – the weather was amazing and the absolute warmest it has EVER been at this time of year .  We enjoyed a fabulous weekend – I even got a little bit of a sunburn!  I went out with my girlfriends Friday night and stayed out later than I’ve been out in years (why not, right?).  On Saturday, we had a wonderful family day – we biked downtown, had a picnic in the park, ate ice cream, and watched the boys play baseball with the neighborhood kids.  Yesterday, my mom arrived, giving Ed and me the opportunity to go on a “bike date” and spend a little bit of alone time.  All in all, a perfect weekend.

So off I go to surgery tomorrow – my next step on this very unexpected journey.  Hopefully it will all go smoothly and the recovery won’t be too bad.  I’ll be in the hospital for two nights to make sure I get the rest I need – I think Ed is looking forward to a couple of nights without the kids, too! J My sister has promised to post an update on the blog as soon as I’m out of surgery  (it starts at 11 so probably won't finish until around 5) so feel free to check back if you are so inclined….and please send me all of your positive vibes tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll post an update myself as soon as I can.