Cancer Diary – Entry 11

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The doctor that referred me for cancer surgery scheduled a follow up appointment for about 2.5 weeks after the surgery - assuming the surgeon would complete his role at about 2 weeks after the surgery (which I posted about in the 10th Cancer Diary post). The appointment with the doctor that will continue my care is the most recent milestone in my journey with cancer and getting treatment. He confirmed that I would not need radiation/chemo and ordered blood lab tests immediately and developed a plan for the next year: periodic blood tests and an ultrasound in a year. I am pleased that my cancer was caught early enough that I am on track to be ‘cured’ rather than living with cancer for the rest of my life.

It was bitterly cold the day of the appointment…but I was buoyed by the results I already knew from the surgeon and the continued fading of the hematoma/healing of the incision. The doctor provided excellent feedback and answered questions…the tech that did the blood draw did a great job getting the needle in smoothly then filling the multiple vials of blood required. On the way out of the building, I stopped for a few seconds to photograph the garden that looked so inviting when the weather was warmer; the fountain is turned off now and it’s too cold to linger but I still like the look of the place. I hurried to my car, thoroughly chilled, but appreciating the time out in the world, away from home. I celebrated that the appointment had been early enough that I got a close parking space!

I am so buoyed by the results that I am feeling more optimistic than I have all during the pandemic; I realize that, even though I was consciously reminding myself that the cancer had been detected early, I experienced a deep anxiety about it that became part of everything I was thinking and doing for the past few months.  Now I’ve started wearing earrings again (when I am not going to be taking a mask off and on), buying flowers every week at the grocery story and making multiple arrangements to place everywhere in the house. This is a time of celebration…a time to be happy that I am healthy and enjoying winter 2022.

Previous cancer diary posts:

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2022

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As I look at my list of little celebrations in January 2022, I am realizing that my surgery stands out so significantly that getting through the surgery itself (the 1st surgery, the reopening of the incision to release blood, the 2nd surgery) is the major celebration of the month! There are little celebrations around that big one: a sunrise and good grocery shopping experience before the surgery, an excellent chicken soup I made a few days after coming home, the hematoma beginning to fade (although it is still not completely gone 2+ weeks afterward…I am checking/celebrating progress every morning), and my first grocery shopping after the surgery (with the assistance of my husband).

The other celebration that stands out this month….more than a little one…is the death of our cat, Boromir. I was glad I held him close for over an hour on his last day….that he seemed at peace. We are still missing him but also celebrating that Boromir was with us for so many years and particularly through the pandemic when we were at home most of the time; he contributed to the positive vibe that seemed so natural…so easily sustained.

And then there were some ‘usual’ little celebrations:

A great meatloaf. I discovered that adding a little olive oil if the ground beef is very lean and using spaghetti sauce instead of salsa improves the texture and flavor!

Red velvet cake/carrot cake for our 49th wedding anniversary. We both savored our slice of celebratory cake…not having any leftovers!

Peppermint snow ice cream. Celebrating a seasonal favorite and plenty of snow to make it!

A new garage door. It was awful to have a damaged door….I celebrated that we could get it replaced quickly.

Snow on the ground. Celebrating the beautiful scene from the windows of our house….and the different perspective as I walked through the neighborhood.

Cancer Diary – Entry 10

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A week and half after my surgery, I made a quick trip to the grocery store…at my usual early morning time. I covered my healing scar with a scarf and my usual KF94 face mask which was comfortable because it was so cold! The big difference from my norm was my husband went with me to put the items that weighed more than 10 pounds on my cart. He did that at the beginning and then I continued the rest of my shopping as usual – scanning the items I was buying with my phone using the store’s app, loading up my bags as I shopped, and then checking out at the self-checkout. My husband was waiting in the car to load all the bags when I was done….and then he unloaded them into the house when we got home.  It was my first venture away from the house since the surgery….and helped me feel like I was truly getting back to normal (or ‘normal’ in raging Omicron surge time).

I had a telemedicine session with my surgeon a few days shy of 2 weeks after my surgery. Because of the ‘bleed’ and reopening of the incision on the same day as the surgery, I still had the residual purple, red, yellow colors visible on my skin. That will take time to clear. The incision itself was healing well…past the point of concern about infection… and the 10-pound weight limit was lifted. The analysis of the tissue removed had been done and it appears that the cancer was in an early stage…no further treatment should be required. The session marked the end of the interaction with the surgeon and the transition to the specialist that will monitor me going forward; the appointment with that doctor is in a few days which will define the monitoring plan going forward (the levels of the one medication required and the schedule for any subsequent testing).

The incision is healed enough that I can wear clothing that might rub it a little now and it has made it easier to dress…helped to gently cause the surgical glue to flake away. It’s also a boost to my mood to look more my normal self although some of the hematoma is still visible.

I made a foray out into the yard a few days after the telemedicine session to take the accumulated kitchen/spend cut flowers back to the compost pile and to collect branches that fell during the snow and wind of the past few weeks. Another activity that I handled with ease…. confirming to myself that I was making a good recovery.

I have been making my 12,000 steps per day goal since the week after surgery but there are still instances where I feel unexpectedly tired, and I am glad my situation is flexible enough to allow me to rest when that happens. I’ve taken a few unplanned naps! It doesn’t happen every day but when it does,  I heed the message my body is sending!

So – two weeks after surgery – I am feeling more and more like I did before the surgery…and very pleased that I will not need follow up radiation/chemo!

Previous cancer diary posts:

Cancer Diary – Entry 9

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The next milestone after cancer surgery is the appointment with the surgeon 2 weeks after. I’m writing this post a week after the surgery…so halfway to that milestone.

I spent the night after the surgery in the hospital. It was a miserable night with the head of the bed at a 30 degree angle….pressure cuffs on legs…throat sore after two rounds of anesthesia…IVs. Sleep was not possible although I felt deeply exhausted. I ordered breakfast as early as I could…the first food since the day before surgery: scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. Eating was slower going than I anticipated because my throat was sore, and swallowing was not quite back to normal; on the plus side – I really savored that meal! There was the taking of meds (more challenging because of swallowing issue), waiting around for release orders, and finally it was time to go. The coordination of me being wheeled down to the pickup point just as my husband pulled up was successful...and I was on my way home on a sunny cold day.

My priority after getting home was to have some lunch (a smoothie) and then organize myself to follow the discharge instructions. There were not a lot of meds…but enough that were new-to-me that I made a little chart to make sure I took them at the right times for the upcoming week. The situation was more challenging because we decided that in all the flurry with my evening in the hospital, the risk of being exposed to COVID was enough that I needed to be sequestered in the house. I had two rooms upstairs to myself and would wear a mask elsewhere in the house; the sequestering continued through a negative rapid test on day 5 and then day 7. Getting my meals and carrying them back upstairs to eat…juggling to open and close doors…almost required more coordination that I could muster!

Pain was not a problem but the visual of the red and purple color that had moved from the hematoma location down across the front of my chest was disturbing. It was a shock to my sense of self that I had not anticipated…my body looked so different than before…a stranger to myself. I wanted it to improve rapidly; instead - the purple and red color reached its worst the day after I came home from hospital and then seemed to just stay the same for several days; some areas are still purple a week after; I’m hearted that some areas have faded to yellow; the body is cleaning up what happened.

My sleep improved at home but did not return to pre-surgery ‘normal’ until close to the end of the week. Every little odd twinge or tightness was something I monitored….constantly feeling the need to reassure myself that everything was OK. I noticed feeling ‘different’ as I was drifting in and out of sleep – my mind working on whether it was the surgery, the mediations, or just sleep changes…the net was little deep sleep the first few nights.  I napped several times during the first half of the week to make up for the poor sleep during the night. By the end of the first week, sleep and energy level during the day were returning to normal.

My meals had been mostly things like smoothies and soup – easy to swallow – but I graduated to more normal fare by about the 5th day when my husband got us take out from Chipotle (no chips for me, though). The next day I made corn bread muffins with added cranberry/orange relish – somehow I had gotten very hungry for them! I had prepped a meatloaf before my surgery…stored it in the freezer. I moved it from the freezer to refrigerator to thaw the day before and my husband put it in the oven with some baked potatoes.

Bottom line – there are still a few residuals of the surgery that I am noticing 1 week afterward (swallowing not back to normal, color from hematoma event not totally faded) but overall, I am feeling good. Next week, I’ll have to experiment with how to cover up my scar when I am out and about; it helps that it is cold this time of year and bundling up is the norm!

Cancer Diary – Entry 8

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The surgery day finally came. I showered with antibacterial soap as instructed and minimized what I was taking to the hospital in the pockets of a freshly laundered fleece jacket: new mask, eye glasses case, ID and insurance cards and phone. My clothes were comfortable pull-on pants and a button front top…wool socks with clog shoes. We left early enough that the sun came up while we were enroute into the city. The temperature was in the 20s but the place where my husband dropped me off was only a few steps to the door of the building. With the Omicron surge in our area, he was instructed to go home and come back later to get me.

Everything went as expected at first – easy check in because the pre-registration had been complete…the nurse came out to get me and got me into hospital gowns…IV ports were put in….the anesthesiologist came…the surgeon was about 20 minutes late. And then there was a time I don’t remember at all…and I’m in a recovery room…woozy at first and with a headache…drinking a Sprite and realizing that the dehydration headache from the early morning is gone.

Toward the end of the time in the recovery room, things were not as expected. There was more swelling than there should have been. Rather than going home, I would be admitted for overnight. I began to realize I should have paid more attention to the non-optimal outcomes to the surgery and that my phone was running out of power. I was taken in a wheelchair from the outpatient recovery room, through a labyrinth of corridors to a hospital room; on the way there, I noticed every bump in the route and that the swelling seemed to be increasing. The nurse immediately checked the swelling when I arrived ….and realized a hematoma had formed. There was a flurry of activity in the room where the hematoma was drained; they were able to slow the bleeding but not stop it….so back to an operating room where there was another time that I don’t remember at all.

Afterward I learned that while it is not common – it happens occasionally because so many blood vessels into a cancer have to be stopped…one of mine was not seen bleeding during the 1st surgery so the incision was reopened and it was stopped. Then the area was searched further to make sure there was no other bleeding.

Another time in recovery and then back to the hospital room. A nurse had found a charging cable for my phone while I was in the second surgery, but I was too exhausted to turn on the phone until the next morning.

So – not a ‘smooth sailing’ experience. I found myself being very thankful for the doctor recognizing that something might not be quite right…the nurse realizing that the problem had become critical… the professional team that slowed the bleeding and got me back into an operating room to fix the problem.

Cancer is scary and having a ‘bleed’ right after surgery could have been a ramp up of anxiety…but my emotions were almost on pause…in a surreal experience of passively observing highly trained people focused on me…doing what needed to be done. I’ll always remember someone reassuring me, as pressure was applied to slow the bleeding as they moved me from the hospital room to the operating room, that they would get me a clean gown.