The saga continues...

Post#2

Hello again. I am overwhelmed by all of your posts and e-mails and phone calls. I can't tell you how much they all mean. Here's what's been happening. I went to see Dr. Gottlieb (plastic surgeon) about recontruction options on Tuesday, August 26th. Ideally, I would have wanted to have all of the surgery at once so that I could just begin the business of healing, but it looks as if that is not going to happen. Drs. Gottlieb and Simmons got together and could have cleared their schedules for this Friday if I had wanted to do the reconstruction with implants. I am actually going to have reconstruction using my own tissue - muscle from my abdominal wall. This surgery takes 4-5 hours, requires a 5 day stay in the hospital, and has a recovery time of 6-8 weeks. Since this requires blocking off an OR for so many hours, Dr. Gottlieb said that he would not be able to do it on Friday and is not available next Tuesday or Wednesday. After that Dr. Simmons will be preoccupied having her baby. So I opted to have the mastectomy first, recover for 3 or 4 weeks, and then have the reconstruction. I was happy to think that I would have the surgery on Friday, because then I would definitely be able to go to Susan's graduation next Wednesday. I was a little sad however because we were supposed to spend the holiday weekend with Colleen's parents. In true "just when you thought it was safe ..." fashion, all plans changed again. Since I am going to have the reconstruction at a later date, Dr. Simmons didn't have to bump her Friday surgeries for me. So I am scheduled for surgery on Tuesday morning (Sept. 2nd) I have tentatively talked Dr. Simmons into letting me leave the hospital a day early (with the understanding that I would be surrounded by nurses) to go to Sue's graduation. Her office manager said that I would have to sit in the back seat "in case...you know..." I said, "What?" "Well, in case you had an accident you wouldn't want to be anywhere near the airbags." No, I wouldn't want anything between me and the windshield except a snug seatbelt...So now I'm looking for prayers for traveling mercies as well as for the surgery itself...

I was surprised and delighted when Col and I took a ride into Princeton to have lunch with Amy (one of my CPE colleagues) and were met by Amelia, Grier, and Eric as well. The only one of us that was missing was Laura, who is in South Carolina, and she was with us in spirit. As Colleen observed, "Nothing like cancer to bring a group together..." Eric, who has had to put up with countless conversations about "women's issues", was confronted yet again with a new challenge. He rose to the occasion beautifully. Group prayer at Panera's rounded off the lunch.

That's all for now...we'll be away for the weekend, back Monday. Monday evening we hope to have an intimate prayer circle...to say, "Bye bye boobie." (MaryLou, I can hear your groan from here) Thanks for all your support.