Though I am still dealing with a significant amount of pain from my surgery (two weeks ago today), I am thankful to be feeling well enough to be taking care of my kids again. There are some things that I still can’t do (or at least shouldn’t do), like lifting them or doing things that require a lot of physical exertion, but I am able to care for their basic needs.
There is no way any of us would have survived the last two weeks if my mother in-law and mother were not each able to come for several days to help out. And our good friend Lori continues to be a huge help and blessing to us. She has tirelessly and graciously cared for our kids for the majority of my doctors appointments, including watching them for four days while I was in the hospital for my surgery. Of course, there have been many other people helping us with childcare needs and we are so thankful for all of you!
This week we met with both of my surgeons to follow-up from the surgery and to discuss plans for the coming months. The surgeons were both pleased with my recovery so far. I have had an unusual amount of pain, but everything seems to be good in terms of my body healing. One interesting follow-up fact that we learned this week is that the tumor that was found in my lymph node was actually .1 cm larger than the tumor in my breast at the time of surgery. We didn’t even know that tumor existed and it was larger than the one we were focusing on! As far as we know there is no reason to be concerned about this since none of my other lymph nodes contained any cancer. However, there may very well be stray cancer cells in other parts of my body, so I will do a follow-up round of chemotherapy once a week for twelve weeks (March 3-May 26) and then thirty consecutive days of radiation treatment. So we are going to be pretty busy with doctors visits in the coming months, especially in the next month as I will need to go to Charleston every Tuesday for follow-up appointments and to Savannah every Thursday for chemotherapy.
