Julie can't eat cheese

Waiting for an anxious person is torture. Questions to Dan over the last month: my head hurts, do you think my cancer spread to my brain? My back is hurting, do you think it moved to my bones? My neck is sore, neck cancer? I’m tired, cancer? Well, I’ve actually been tired for about 8 years now…

My doctor told me several times as I was trying to decide on surgery that the house was not on fire – I had time to decide. I should probably be medicated…

Finally – SURGERY DAY is here! I had a pre-op call on 12/08 to confirm details. I got another call from the surgery center on 12/12 telling me where to check in and what to expect time wise. Then I got a call on 12/13, telling me my amazing, best of the best, surgeon I share a birthday with is sick and cannot do my surgery. EEEEEEFFFFFFFFFF. I can either reschedule for sometime in January or another surgeon (coincidentally the original surgeon I was supposed to meet in October who was sick) is available if I want to move forward. I cannot wait – I told the woman I would keep my surgery date even though I was super bummed. I told her it was actually funny since I was supposed to meet this new surgeon back in Oct – she said “what’s that called? Kismet?” Let’s hope. She said she would ask the new surgeon to give me a call to check in.

The new surgeon called me a few hours later. He reviewed the plan again and reminded me the surgery is still diagnostic, as we wait for more information from it. He is also the on-call surgeon the day of my surgery, so there could be a delay in my start time but assuming not – the morning will go like this:

6:15am check in. 7:30 injection of tracer dye so they can see the sentinel nodes. Go into surgery around 8:30. They will first do an incision to look at the lymph nodes. They will remove one while I am under and look at it immediately under a microscope to check for cancer spread. They will then either look to remove more if there is obvious spread to other lymph nodes, biopsy others or close me up and move on. Next they will do the lumpectomy to remove the cancer. Then close me up and into recovery I go for about an hour. Because COVID/RSV/flu numbers are high, they said Dan cannot come into recovery. They will let him know when I am ready to leave and will wheel me down to meet him at the car.

The cancer will then be sent for onco-type testing. This will give a full pathology report, helping my team make treatment decisions. The hope is that the cancer is removed with clear margins and all lymph nodes are clear. There is a chance if there aren’t clear margins or there is spread to lymph nodes that I would need a second surgery. The report will also give information on if chemo is recommended or not seen as beneficial. This report will not pop up in my online chart, but I will get all the information at my next follow up with my favorite surgeon on 12/27 (I asked if I could keep my appt with him even if he didn’t do my surgery).

I am limited on activities for the next 8 weeks and no exercise for 2 (just arm stretches and walking). See you in 2 months Peloton.