Have I already mentioned that I love Percocet?

It's the day after and I'm conscious. I'll try to relate yesterday's events to the best of my ability since part of the day is a bit of a fog at best and a complete hole of nothingness at worst, then I'll try to persuade Neil to do a guest post to fill in the holes of the parts I slept through.

We got up bright and early because we needed to be there by 7:30. Our friend Darlene was an angel and came over to spend the day with the kids. When we got there, we went into a staging area of sorts with lots of beds with curtains around them. Mine was right up against the exterior windows. For those of you who don't know where the Huntsman Hospital is, it is right up on the bench of the mountains. The view was beautiful. Anyway, one of the nurses gave me a gown and bag to put my clothes in. I think Neil wanted to ask for a more private area for me to change in (someplace where we weren't right in front of a window and with a privacy curtain that actually closed all the way), but I've long since lost all sense of modesty and just proceeded to strip down and put on the breezy little hospital gown.

When I was done, Dr. Neumayer's surgical nurse, Victoria, came in to go over some paperwork with me, make sure I knew exactly why I was there and what they were going to do, and to mark me up with a sharpie. They wrote a little "yes" on all the places they were going to cut: right breast around where the tumor was, right armpit where they were removing lymph nodes, and left forearm where I had an unusual, unexplained mass that had decreased significantly during chemo. (more about that later.)

After Victoria left, another nurse came in and gave me a little plastic cup for a urine sample. Then she stepped back and just kind of looked at me. I was confused. I finally just said, "You want me to do it right here?"  "Oh, no!" she says, "lets find a restroom." Thank heavens. I guess I do have a little bit of that sense of modesty left.

After I'd given my sample, I had to go to mammography to have the wire inserted. Since there was no tumor left, Dr. Neumayer needed something to guide her to where it had been so they were going to insert a little wire through the breast that went directly to the little metal marker that had been inserted in the middle of the tumor. Then during surgery, Dr. Neumayer would cut out a cylinder of tissue all around the wire. In order to insert the wire, they had to see where the marker was. So they took me in to have another mammogram. They would use the image on the mammogram screen to help them insert the wire where it needed to go. They explained how exactly this was going to work but I think once I realized that it was going to be inserted while I was in compression, I kind of blocked everything else out. It wasn't the wire being shoved in that bothered me. The distressing part of this was that I had to be in compression while they did it. For those of you who have had a mammogram, you know that they are not anywhere near comfortable, but they are bearable because you are only squished as flat as a pancake for a few seconds. Well imagine them putting one of the girls in compression, FULL COMPRESSION, and then leaving her there for five minutes. That's how long they told me it would take. I think she got the message that I was not okay with this when my mouth dropped open and then me saying, just a little louder than I probably should have, "FIVE MINUTES!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???"

Needless to say, I didn't even feel the wire go in. I was to busy screaming in my head about the fact that my boob was literally being smashed to death. By the time they were done I was amazed that there was anything left for them to cut out. Believe it or not, that was the worst part of the whole day.

Once the wire was in and set, they took me to another little room where Dr. Neumayer injected into the breast a "radiolabeled" fluid. That's a slightly less alarming term than "radioactive," but they mean about the same thing. The reason for this is that they were trying to identify which of the 60 or so lymph nodes under my arm was the "sentinel" lymph node, or the node that the breast drained to first. If there was cancer in any of the nodes, it would be in the sentinel lymph node. In surgery, using a sort of modified geiger counter, they can identify which nodes had most of the radiolabeled fluid and remove them for testing. If there is no cancer in those, they don't need to remove any more. If they do find cancer, then they will usually remove several more to make sure they have gotten out all the nodes that contained any cancer cells. The fluid she injected burned going in. It felt like they were injecting hot sauce, but still, it was cake compared to the above mentioned boob-squishing incident.

After I was done with the boob-squishing and radioactive fluid injecting procedures, they moved me into my own private little room to wait for surgery to be ready for me. It would also be where they wheeled me after I came out of surgery too. I think it was anyway. While I was there, a nurse came in to put in my IV and my anethstesiologists also came in to tell me everything that could happen due to the anethstesia: stroke, heart failure, and a bunch of other things I can't remember. I wonder if they've ever had anyone back out after hearing all that. At least one of them said, "But just so you know, it's more likely that you will die in a car accident once you've left the hospital than it is for any of these things to happen during surgery." I wasn't sure what to say to that.

Then they wheeled me into the operating room and had me move over to the operating table. I remember noticing green lights above me. That was odd. They said they were going to put a breathing tube down my throat, but they must have put it in and taken it out while I was still under because I don't remember any of it.

Once I was all toasty under warm blankets, they put a mask over my face and told me to breathe deeply. The next thing I know, some lady is telling me to wake up and I'm thinking, "Why is she bugging me, doesn't she know I'm about to have surgery?" I just decided to ignore her. Then she says, "I need you to at least open your eyes so I know that you can." I opened one eye, looked at her, and then shut it again. A little while later I hear her talking--I think she must be talking on the phone to Neil--she says, "She's fine. She's been in recovery for about 45 minutes, but we're having a hard time getting her to wake up."  What?!? I'm done? So then I open my eyes and they decide they can wheel me back into my little room where Neil is waiting.

I think I was in that room for a while. I was really tired and just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could go back to sleep but someone kept telling me to breathe because my oxygen was low. Then she left and neil started telling me to breathe. I just kept saying, "I AM BREATHING!!!!" I just wanted to go back to sleep. It was funny though because I remember thinking, "I don't need to breathe." Usually when you don't breathe you start to feel pain in your chest and gasp for air. I didn't. I didn't feel the need to breathe, but they kept bugging me to breathe so I did every now and then. Anything so they would just let me go back to sleep.

I guess they decided I finally had enough oxygen in my blood because they got me a wheel chair and Neil wheeled me out to the car. I was no longer in the hospital gown though so I must have gotten dressed at some point. My IV was gone too. Don't remember when that happened.

So we drive home, go in the house, I say hi to Darlene and the kids and then just walk into the bedroom, lie down and.... I'm gone.  I vaguely remember Neil coming in to give me drugs and food. I also remember Lily, at some point, pounding on the bedroom door yelling, "MomMA! MomMA!" I heard voices now and then, but that's about it. Next thing I know, it's 8 pm. I think we got home about 3:00 in the afternoon. I had Neil put Lily in bed with me and I slept until 7:30 this morning, only getting up ocassionally to take some more lovely Percocet and to throw Lily's legs off my face. I slept like the dead.

So, anyway, today is Saturday. The cleaning ladies came to clean this morning, my angel neice took Elijah and Lily for an all day play date, and my neighbors brought over dinner last night with dessert. So, my house is clean, quiet, and stocked with brownies.  Life is beautiful.

Oh, I suppose I should also say that they won't have definitive pathologial results until they can do more thorough testing that won't be complete for about another week, but according to the initial tests, they found absolutely no cancer cells anywhere in the breast tissue, none in the lymph nodes, and none in the weird, unexplained mass in my arm.

Complete pathological response was what I was going for. Won't know for sure until testing is finished, but it's definitely looking good.