Hospital Photos

He loved the cake; and the big construction machines that are adding onto the building.

Scar tissue? It’s just scar tissue???

All of the tests came back. Nothing Dr. Goff biopsied was cancerous. It is just scar tissue. Just scar tissue!!!! Ha! I knew it, probably left there from my many episodes of pneumonia earlier this year. I'm so happy.

Dr. Goff read the report for the first time in front of me and one of my nurses. We all had tears in our eyes. Of course I wanted to run and jump and yell... but I have this damn tube poking out of my chest; it really restricts jumps for joy.

Soon word spread throughout the floor and a few hours later the nursing staff brought me a huge pink cake so I could have a celebration with my son when he gets here later on... that made me cry. They are all planning to come in when he gets here because they want to see his reaction to the cake; they even got his favorite kind. We decided to tell him it is just a party for Mom because "she is so special," since he doesn't know I am fighting cancer... I think that is fine.

I called Linda and asked her to bring up my camera so I can take pictures and post them later.

Never have surgery on a Friday

I have decided to never have surgery on a Friday again; and that I will always ask my surgeon if he has vacation scheduled or any days off in the days following my procedure. When Dr. Goff finally showed up yesterday morning, all my problems got solved with one wave of his magic wand... duh. I feel stupid.

Yes, in just a brief moment he was able to solve my pain problems. I'm now on 2 Lortab 10s every 4 -6 hours. That was the magic formula. Why someone kept me on morphine shots every 2 hours all weekend is unknown and nobody will own up to it now. lol... and I have to admit that my mind is working much better now too.

What was actually in my pleural space is still a mystery. We won't know until we get all the reports back. He said "it is not what I would expect to find in this situation." which I understand as an intellectual way to say "I dunno... I've never seen this before." I speak that way; so I understand it. Language manipulators... you gotta watch out for us. He mentioned that we have to "assume" that it is cancer and maybe it just looks different because it has already been treated... I can tell he is curious; he wants to know. I suspect that he usually doesn't get patients post-chemo, so I think that explanation is very possible.

He said maybe today or tomorrow before they would pull the tubes. He wants to get the most lung expansion possible; and I soooo agree. Even though I can't wait to get home and be with my son, it would be a drag to go through all this and not get the total benefit... it's been too miserable.

Although, in a way I'm glad I'm sitting here zoned out on painkillers while watching the economic bloodbath... it's very scary for me. Seasonal businesses and luxury items like Jungle Roses will be really affected. While some financial problems don't touch my regular customers that much; a falling stock market does. I need to get strong and get back to work. I've already been walking a fine line with all that has been going on... I remember what our business was like after 9/11's stock market crash... that along with my health issues... whew... it's going to be a real challenge.

My first sponge bath...

Nope, I've never had one before. It felt strangely good. A woman from the Ukraine did it. It was funny... just the accent alone made it amusing. If you can picture it, "you vant me do vash the back now yes?" They finally have my pain under control but I'm still coughing and it sounds like I have a Harley on my chest when I breathe.

Funny things are coming back to me now. Without knowing; I caused trouble for my surgeon. The OR nurse asked if I had been marked; you know how they mark you with an X with a sharpie to make sure they do the right side? So I said "yes, a girl in his office did it." Unbeknownst to me, that is against the hospital rules and the surgeon must mark you personally. This nurse was so pissed off that she made my surgeon come out of the OR to mark me himself. He was mad. He strode over to me with one of those mad fast walks, threw back the top of my gown on the shoulder and then with a ball point pen he roughly drew a small X in the same spot as the sharpie X. He then said, "I marked her myself, happy now?" Then he turned away and walked out in a huff. The nurse had a huge grin of satisfaction; I had a pissed off surgeon. Good thing I didn't tell her that I interrupted their lunch and a girl marked me in the hallway while holding a plate of Chinese food.

This left everyone in the pre-op room with gaping mouths and a tad bit nervous. Especially the 2 guys that were wheeling me in... so what happens? As they take off with me they get wrapped up in the TV cord and start to pull it off the wall. It doesn't come all the way off though; but that's because the weight of the gurney and me managed to sever the cord before the fall could happen. So we destroyed a hospital TV.

As I was waking up in recovery I was having dream in which my son was showing me something, the details are sketchy. But it was some new idea he had come up with that made us millions... I'm going to start paying attention to all his ideas... lol.

My recovery nurse is a breast cancer survivor. And we spent my recovery time sharing chemo stories. She was really sweet. It's mind boggling. I have met so many people who have either had cancer or know someone close that has... it's a disease that affects so many people. In some cases people refer to it like it's a root canal or something... you know by saying, "well when my grandmother had her breast cancer...” Odd.

This is so freakin’ miserable...

They haven't been able to control my pain... I'm so miserable. Yesterday they got it controlled but my nurse got in trouble because he had overdosed me on Tylenol. Rats. So now they have me on Percalone, which I had never heard of; it's a Percaset minus the Tylenol. But that hasn't been working so they are giving me shots of morphine every two hours. And on top of that I'm nauseated and keep coughing. Every time I cough it hurts like hell.

I still haven't seen my surgeon, Dr Goff. Everyone here says my chest tube is ready to come out—except my surgeon's partner, who is on call for Dr. Goff, who obviously doesn't want to get his hands dirty over the weekend and said "no," that we had to wait until Dr. Goff came back on Monday. He came in, read the number on the unit that the fluid collects in and he read it wrong; the nurse even pointed this out to him and he brushed her off and said "oh this takes 3 or 4 days." I wanted to punch him.

So maybe tomorrow... I hope so; I can't stand much more of this. Sorry to be so negative; but pain sends a positive attitude out the window fast.

Sorry I stepped on that hose going to your lungs Mom...

Here I am. I made it through the surgery and I'm now recovering. It's been quite a journey. I have not yet met with my surgeon; but he told Lee and Linda that things went well. He found some "patches" that he is going to biopsy; although all the tests they have done so far on it are "inconclusive." He has ordered some more testing but the results won't be back for a week or so.

There is pain; but it's tolerable. The really cool thing is that the hospital now has "room service." No kidding. You get a full scale restaurant menu to pick from. It's so nice... until you get the food and you realize… ohhhh yeah; it's still hospital food... lol. But it's okay.

My respiratory therapy is going well. I'm already up to what my function was before the surgery. And I seem to be draining well... I'm hoping to go home Monday or Tuesday.

My son visited this afternoon and checked everything out. He is very curious about everything; all the equipment and what my blood pressure is... so cute. It's hard for me to be away from him. I can't begin to explain how much I miss him.

I have actually spent the day reading and watching TV. Something I haven't done in years. I even watched the debate tonight. It's boring. I miss watching Noggin... lol.

"Did they git it awl?"

I just finished our home school for today. One of the greatest things I think about home schooling is that you can do it when the mood strikes... or in my case when Mom wakes up from the Benadryl she got in her cancer infusion. I'm so happy my son is beginning to read again. At the age of 3 he was reading at a beginning 1st grade level, but felt severely abnormal because the other kids could not, so after a poor school experience, he stopped reading and pretended he couldn't. I knew he was. I would see him do it and holy crap he zips around the internet like a whiz... finally now, at age 5 ½, he isn't pretending anymore and has picked up where he left off and progressing quickly. He is now entertaining himself with a video... I don't know how long that will last so this may be a short update.

Since I have been off chemo for many weeks now I have started to venture out into the community a little more. And I'm finding it hard to explain. I know people are trying to be nice, and trying to make themselves feel better... but man, I am so tired of the question "Did they git it awl?" or the sometimes more positively expressed, "they got it all and everything’s fine right?" I don't know what to say. I know people are used to that idea that you get surgery and they "git it all" and then you get chemo just in case "they didn't git it awl" and then radiation "fer certain." I try to explain, "Well... um... we killed it all... I have a dead tumor in my breast." This of course, results in a slow blink of the eyes followed by a glance at my breast as if they can see it... that's kinda funny.

That gets follow up with "are they going to take it out?" and I say "no." "It's fine to have a dead tumor in your body, no big deal." I've been asked if it will come back to life..."no, once a cell is dead, it's dead." That kind of thing only happens in the bible. I don't say that bible thing; but ohhhh I want to say it. Then I get "so you aren't having radiation or surgery or anything?" Nope. But then I am having that lung thing done, and I have to continue the fight to make sure I never get it back, but… oh hell... at that point I just don't want to explain anymore.

I know part of it is that people want some reassurance that, even though they don't think this could ever happen to them, if it did; it's fixable. And hearing that from me takes some of that fear away and reassures them. Yeah, I get that... cancer is freakin' scary. It's made my most horrible nightmares very real.

And to be honest there are days I don't quite understand it either. I have had this conversation in many places, the bank, the store, here and there. It's very hard to have it in front of my son. So I have decided just to say, "Yes. They got it aaaawwwllll." And in my mind I know that we killed it all. And when they say, "you don't have to have surgery or radiation?" I'm saying "no, I'm a miracle of modern medicine."

I often describe, with much affection, one of my older sisters this way when people would ask why we didn't look alike. I would say "she's a miracle of modern medicine." It would take a minute and then they would laugh as they realized the secret to her physical perfection... so touche'. Now we are both modern medical miracles!

My son is over his video now. He just brought me a book he is studying on volcanoes and we read how a volcano will have it's most violet eruptions right before and during a full moon. I don't know who is more fascinated with this fact... me or him?

Sunday Update

Ahhhh… Sunday mornings, my time to catch up on blogs and contemplate life. It's also one of the rare times I have alone. Our nanny goes to church (yes, really) and my son sleeps a little late. It's just me and the cats, by ourselves for a little while.

I had yet another thorocentesis this week. Yep, the needle in the back. Another liter and half of beer-looking fluid. At least this time it took 3 times longer to accumulate. And wow... this was the most painful recovery from it to date. I'm still sore. When I breathe in fully it hurts and still makes that crackly sound.

I scheduled the talc pleurodesis for the 26th. I'm hoping for a short, 3 day hospital stay; but I know I have to prepare for longer. So the next couple of weeks will be a lot of work for me. And yes it's true; I will be continuing the tradition as a member of the Child family hospitalized at the end of September.

I also blew my knees out last weekend. I have off and on had problems with mild arthritis over the past 10 years or so. Last weekend I was thrilled to feel somewhat functional and I spent the two days playing with my son. We played soccer, tag and continuing with his entrepreneurial enthusiasm, he offered to wash the car—for a small fee of course; a job that required a lot of my help. He was thrilled to have his old Mom back.

When I woke up Monday me knees were swollen up to the appearance of a medium ripe cantaloupe. I hobbled around all week. I iced and elevated when I could. Today they are much better. During this problem I recalled what I used to do before to "fix" it; a lot of ibuprofen.

Being cautious I searched and found that ibuprofen isn't recommended with my medications. During that search I found a wonderful article on Zometa. Something I hadn't read before. An Austrailian test found that use of Zometa, in the same protocol that I am on, reduced the reoccurrence of metasitic breast cancer in pre-menopausal women (got all that...that's me!) by 2/3rds. 2/3rds!!!! Now that is a statistic I can get behind. Awesome.

Forks are Extra

I now believe my son to be an economic genius. I think he will rival Bill Gates one day in shrewd business savvy. I knew he had a gift for math, but now I can't wait to start teaching him more economic and financial things. It should be fun; I'm glad I got so much education in those areas myself. Now I have someone to teach it all to.

Here's what happened; about 2 hours after he moved into his new "apartment" it dawned on him that his plan had one big flaw. He didn't have a fridge and thus no place to store food. So he came back down and proposed a swap. Still not giving up, he suggested that he would move downstairs and make the kitchen/dining/family area his apartment and I could live upstairs in the bedrooms. He then embraced this idea with much enthusiasm as he also realized that gave him access to the TV and internet... lol.

After much discussion I got him to understand that these areas are "family" areas and belong to everyone and if he wanted to use them he had to agree to become part of the family again. He thought about it for a long time though, so I told him that maybe when he was older—like 10 or so—I would build him a bedroom downstairs and he could live there and my bedroom could be upstairs. His eyes danced with glee. I had planned to do that anyway. His room upstairs is tiny and right next to mine; eventually he will need more space. That was the deal closer, he agreed to be part of the family again.

Then I gave it some thought and decided that it might be a good time to do some more educating about money and how it all works. So I suggested to him that he could "earn" enough money to buy the ball he wanted. He was perplexed at first and asked "can you find a job for a 5 year old Mom?" I explained that since the next day was the nanny's day off he could do some of her work and I would pay him for it. He loved the idea. The next day he loaded the dishwasher himself, swept the floor, helped me with some Jungle Roses things and even made me lunch all by himself... and yes, it was not only edible, it was tasty. He got enough money to buy 2 balls he wanted.

We went back to the store and he picked out the balls, but noticed that they now had the Halloween decorations on display. We both love Halloween and he had to "check them out." I didn't see it, but they had strung a wire across the top of the isle that had a motion controlled ghostly thing that slid across it when someone walked down the isle. Yep, you know it. It brushed against my now bare neck in the back and I let out a blood boiling scream. Much to my son's delight; he thought that was the coolest thing ever!

When we got back home he added the balls to the collection he already has and explained that he "needed" those because they were a different color and questioned me with a "now do you understand Mom?" I said "okay" …sigh. He then told me that he wanted to keep working so he could make enough money to go back and buy the ghost that had scared me so much. He even showed me where he plans to hang it on the front porch. Sounds good to me, I can use the help too.

He made a list of jobs to do the next day. Included, of course, was making me lunch. He is quite the little Wolf Gang Puck. He loves to cook. And I found he especially likes to make things for me that he thinks are yucky, like salad. That day he made me a huge salad; even tossed it with dressing for me and the works. It looked wonderful. He brought it to me with water and curiously… a tiny spoon. I walked back into the kitchen and said "I need a fork." He blocked the silverware drawer with his stepstool and thus I needed him to move in order to get one. He said, "Mom, forks are 2 dollars." "What?" I said with surprise and a little bit of awe. He says "spoons are free, forks are 2 dollars." I about fell over. My 5 year old son somehow instinctively figured out the economic principle of scarcity and demand all on his own... I'm thrilled... lol

I paid the 2 extra dollars and ate my wonderful salad. By 10 I'm hoping to make him Vice President of Jungle Roses... he's bound to want his own office though and, no doubt, his own fridge.