For those keeping score

Last week I had some milestones that I'd like to share. I hit Day 100 of Nerlynx, the med I'm taking for 365 days that is supposed to decrease the chance of cancer recurrence. My body is acclimating well (though those first 50+ days had me very glad for my BFF Imodium) and I haven't needed any Imodium at all for about 2 weeks now. I've weaned down from 2-3 daily to one a day to now none! Woohoo!

Secondly, I got my port out! I'm no longer bionic. I'd been a bit nervous about getting it out as my surgeon said it's just done in an office visit. I quipped to a friend, "what is it, like a "here, bite this. *snip* *slurp* *slap a bandaid on and boot me out the door* kind of thing?" She laughed and said, "this isn't the Wild West!"

Except, it kind of was!

When I got to the appointment, my surgeon came in and made a funny face when I asked how things were going. "I've been here five months and had hoped to have things a little more to my liking... At my former practice (where I'd been seeing him) I had everything I needed and just the way I wanted it. I wasn't aware we were doing this today. We can still do it, but they don't have these rooms equipped the way the last place was, so someone from the OR is coming with everything we'll need and we can just kind of MacGyver it."

I was fervently grateful my sweet husband wasn't in the room. Not that he couldn't have handled it, but I'm glad I didn't have to talk him down and convince him that I'd be okay. Haha! "Okay, let's go for it!"

Sure enough, a gal from the OR came in with a metal box. They unfolded one of those blue, thick paper towel-ish papers and draped me with it. He cut a out a space to work and swapped disinfectant all over me. It took more numbing stuff than he expected to get me where I couldn't feel the needle poking me, but then it was smooth sailing where he sliced an incision, pulled out the port (which was way longer than I thought, and didn't look at all like it had been inside me for 15 months), and stitched me shut again. I confessed to the young woman that I had grilled him while under general anesthesia when he was placing the port. He added, "there were a lot of questions." Too bad I don't remember even seeing him in the room, but oh well. He also shared with her that he'd had an attending who taught that if you (a surgeon) take good care with your stitching that you shouldn't need steri-strips or tape or whatever, and that he internalized that. I do have beautiful, clean incisions and scars from his work, I'll grant him that.

So all in all, I chatted them up (naturally) throughout the procedure, giggled when he cut a bandage down from "massive" and walked out to the waiting room where my Mommee was waiting for me. I'm glad I'd made the conscious choice to not obsess over how bad the procedure was going to be, and I'm glad that I got to help keep his surgical skills sharp by his having the opportunity to improvise. Ha! He will check in with me in the spring but foresees no issues.

I had a follow up appointment with my oncologist the following week. She said my white blood cells, hemoglobin, platelets, and tumor markers were all "perfect" and that I was doing "fantastic" and that I was the icing on her morning. She plans to see me back just before Thanksgiving but is thrilled that I'm doing so well and also expects no problems. My PET scan results were clear and she felt nothing out of the ordinary during my physical exam. 

Long story short, thanks for over a year of prayers and support and cards and love, you guys. Thank you for being part of my medical adventure. A friend was asking me if I'd learned anything throughout this experience and I told her that I felt like I'd learned how loved I am. That must sound incredibly weird; that I figured out I'm loved by getting cancer? Yes. I've had people come out of the woodwork to bring meals, take me to appointments, mail cards and packages, send flowers, and pray for me. Some of them I'll never even get a chance to meet. Some I don't even know about! That's what's crazy- that when you pray for someone you can help alter their circumstances for the better and they may never even know you were a part of it. What a fabulous thing! So thank you, all of you, so very much from me and mine. We are grateful for your interventions and for God's faithfulness.

You know what else? You are every bit as loved as I am!