Pathology Report

Yesterday Mom and Dad had a visit with Dr. Faddis to remove Mom's drains and to discuss the pathology report. The report was great and exciting news. All of the lymph nodes that Dr. Faddis removed were clear and cancer free. She also had clear and cancer free margins (the edge tissue). There was no cancer in the skin. The cancer was only detectable microscopically in the breast tissue that was removed. Dr. Faddis told Mom and Dad over and over throughout this visit that this is all great news and a truly excellent report. Dr. Faddis was not able to tell Mom what this means in terms of her future treatment plan. She will have a visit with Dr. Kenyon the oncologist and hear his thoughts about the pathology report and how this new information will impact her future treatments.

Mom is recovering very well. After she arrived home last Saturday it was only a matter of a few hours before she declared that she was bored with just sitting and was ready to DO something.

Prompted by her industrious spirit, Steve and I went out front and dug 40 two foot by two foot holes so that we could plant all the baby roses that we bought in early August at the rose sale. Dad joined us after his nap and helped us with the project. The next day Mom helped us plan where to plant all the different varieties and we completed the project. Now we have a huge front yard rose garden that we will always remember was planted the weekend after Mom's successful surgery.

Mom has spent the week peeling apples from out back to make more applesauce, picking the blackberries that hang over the fence, helping Maya with her homework, and steadily working on increasing her strength by sweeping the floor and walking around the block. You can't keep the woman down.

Mom will have a couple more weeks to recover before she starts in on more treatment. We know for sure that she will continue taking the herceptin at the infusion center every three weeks and also have radiation treatments five days a week for several weeks. This will all start up again at the end of September or early October.

On the home front, Elias is having a great time in kindergarten; Maya is making the transition to the higher expectations of 3rd grade; and I went to the humane society and brought home two kittens. We like to keep busy.

Love, Emily

Surgery Day

Mom and Dad went to Good Samaritan Hospital at 6:30 am on Thursday September 4 for Mom's mastectomy. The first big step in the process was a visit to radiology to have dye and radioactivity placed in Mom. The purpose of this was to help locate the sentinel node during surgery. Then by examining the sentinel node Dr Faddis could determine how many lymph nodes were cancerous and would need to be removed. The first step proved a bit more annoying than expected. The radiology department was on the slow side and had to be moved into action by Dr. Faddis. Mom was taken late to radiology at around 9:00 am. She was supposed to be in surgery at 10:00 am. Dr. Faddis was pacing around waiting for her return to her room so that she could be taken to surgery. When she did not return around 10:00 she lost her time slot in the operating room. She finally returned at 10:20. She was not pleased that she now had to wait longer to start surgery. She had a very painful time in radiology with the injection of the radiation and the dye and the long time she had to spend in "the tube" with her arms above her head having some kind of scan done. Dad, Patty, and I did our very best to entertain her and comfort her as we all waited for the operating room to once again be available. At around 11:20 they wheeled her away to surgery. We moved our group to the upstairs main waiting room and began the long wait.

Our wait turned out to be longer than anticipated. Dad, Patty, Grandma and Granddaddy and I all did our best to talk our way through our anxiety. We had been told that the surgery would last an hour to an hour and a half. That means we started being hopeful around 12:30, were expecting something around 1:00, and started worrying at 1:30. Dr. Faddis finally arrived in the waiting room at 2:04.

Here are the results of the surgery as we know them right now. This is a summary of what Dr. Faddis told us there in the waiting room after completing Mom's mastectomy.

1. He could not find the sentinel node. This is very rare. It has only happened to him a couple of times in his 10 years of doing surgery. He searched for it for a long time. His best guess is that the reason he could not find it is because the chemotherapy has been so effective in the area. It is almost like that in the warfare that has taken place in Mom's breast between the chemo and the cancer that the sentinel node just got wiped out.

2. Because he could not find the sentinel node he had to make a decision about how many lymph nodes to take. He did not take them all. He did not think it necessary. But, he took more than he might have if he had been able to examine the sentinel node. Those that he took will be frozen and examined to see if they contained any cancer. He really does not think they will be cancerous. He really does not think that she will have to have more surgery to remove more nodes. He did not take so many that it will effect the use of her arm.

3. He was pleased about the how her breast looked on the gross level. He did not find any cancerous mass or lump. He found a lot of scar tissue from the work of the chemotherapy. He could tell that the chemotherapy has been effective. On the gross level there was nothing that he saw that he would say was cancerous. But, this does not have a lot of meaning until we get the pathology report.

4. We will get the pathology report sometime next week mid week. This will give us and the doctors more information about how much cancer is left and what will be the best way to fight it.

Mom left recovery and was placed in a private room at around 3:00 pm. She was in a great deal of pain and very nauseous. The nurses were able to help get the pain in control fairly easily, but the nausea was a different matter. She was nauseated and throwing up intermittently all that afternoon, evening, and through the night. She was miserable. She was either swimming in nausea or swimming in over medication. Dad stayed in the hospital with her all night. There was not a lot of sleep for either of them. She also had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic the gave her in the night. That caused more mayhem and discomfort. In the morning a better anti-nausea medication was found and Mom finally had some relief. By early this afternoon her cheeks were pink again and she had hope of surviving. This evening she ate some food. Dad will stay the night with her again. She will come home tomorrow.

I am very tired and that is the best I can do for tonight. Thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. Thank you especially to my Aunt Patty who helped Dad and I in the hospital on Thursday and then came over this morning to watch Elias so I could go back to the hospital. Thank you to my friend Cedar who watched Elias all day Thursday and Lori who watched him this afternoon. Thank you to Steve who has done everything at home. Thank you God even for these hard days and for the hope of more days in the future.

Love, Emily