Surgery Update

Well it has been a month since I have posted so I better update you all.  I have been lounging and being lazy trying to heal from all these darn surgeries.   My double mastectomy is behind me and I am healing nicely with that surgery.  However, a few days after surgery I was told the cancer was in my left lymph node so I needed another surgery.  On June 24th I had all my lymph nodes removed from my left arm pit.  This surgery has been a major obstacle!! It was really, really painful and I am still feeling the pain today.  I don't have full arm movement and to top things off I got a fungal infection at the site as well.  Ughh.... I am sooo over surgeries!  The results from my lymph node removal came back and they removed 5 nodes and none of them were cancerous!  Yeah!! 
On July 20th I met with my plastic surgeon so she could fill up my tissue expander's.  I now have 550 cc. of saline in them and I will have one more fill and they are full! I still dislike them VERY much.  I have some nerve pain/damage (not sure) from my shoulder to my elbow.  It is hard to describe the pain.  I don't really have any feeling but when you rub the area it is painful.  I hope this goes away soon.  Also the weirdest feeling is when I have an itch on my breast but it is not a skin itch just an itch that I can't get to.  I told you it was weird.  My next plan of action is to have my DIEP flap surgery in October.

I snuck in to talk to my oncologist and she is taking my case to tumor conference on July 27th to determine if I need radiation or not.  I am PRAYING that I don't have to do radiation. I have been told I need 6 weeks 5 days a week of radiation.  We will see...

 I am now taking 2 aspirin a day to keep my blood thinned which means that I have finished my Lovenox injections.  I was getting those daily for 90 days at the local hospital.  I am so thankful they are done.  I will be starting an IV infusion of Zometa to prevent me from getting bone cancer.  I will go every 3 months for 2 years and the treatment is about an hour long.  I am hoping that my local hospital can do these treatments.   

On another note we took Owen to see his pediatric endocrinologist  for his growth hormone medicine.  He started up last night and did fine.  I am looking for him to start sprouting really fast.  He was -4.0 on the height chart. 

Here is a pic of my new hair with Owen and the other pic is an update on this post.

Owen, Grandma JJ, and I stopped to pick sunflowers to give to Aunt Ellen.

Here is an updated pic of my nails. If you look close you can see discoloration and white lines.  Those white lines are really fragile and the nails just peel when they get close to the white portion.  I also lost one toe nail so not too bad considering the thought of losing them all.  

Yes, that is my wedding band!  The nurses just taped my wedding band but my surgeon needed it removed b/c of all the tools he was using could cause the metal to do damage to my finger.  Well the only problem was I haven't been able to get that ring off for who knows how long. Obviously they couldn't either so they cut it off me. I feel naked now that I don't have my wedding band and I can't wait to get it fixed.