Dr. Housekamp, the surgeon who performed the lymph node biospy and Power Port surgery, called this morning. He said it was a difficult lymph node surgery because the lymph nodes were really hard to get to. He did a lot of digging because they were quite deep. He removed six lymph nodes and two of them came back with cancer. They were hoping to do a MAC sedation which makes you kind of out of it and you won’t really remember it, but half way through the procedure they had to do a general. I’ll spare you all the technical information, but they did a good thing by knocking me out completely. Thankfully my throat doesn’t hurt from the breathing tube and I had no side effects from that.
Dr. Housekamp (surgeon) is going to talk to Dr. VanderWoude (oncologist) about what the next steps are. He said she may want to do a PET scan to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else (I thought that’s what the CAT scans were for, but what do I know). He also said she may want to do radiation in my armpit after chemo. We will wait and see.
Dr. VanderWoude hasn’t staged the cancer yet because she was waiting for the lymph node biopsy results. Once I know what stage the cancer is I will pass it along to you.
Please pray that I will not lose my fighting spirit. When I receive news like I did today about the lymph nodes, I find myself wanting to throw up my hands and have a big ol’ pity party for myself. Everything I do takes energy. I can choose to use the energy to fight rather than feel sorry for myself.
God will help me beat this. We’re going to fight together and win. He’s got my back. My God makes the sun rise and fall. He is huge. He is larger and more powerful than we can imagine. He can move mountains. He saved my little girl. He can save me too. Just believe it.