Recap-New Season

In December of last year, a routine (for me--every three months) mammogram detected a new vague area that tested positive for cancer of the original type (triple negative) near my sentinal lymph scar. We headed to New Hampshire Christmas downhearted from the news. I was scheduled to have lymph node surgery as soon as we returned. But that day, my surgeon was uneasy about the diagnosis and wanted to re-discuss our options. After a whirlwind day of review and consideration, we made the sad but obvious decision to have a full mastectomy/lymph dissection on Jan. 12th. A month later, my body had not stopped creating fluid after surgery drains were removed. In a rather dramatic middle-of-the-night "explosion" my doctor sent me back to surgery for expander extraction and wound cleanup. I was put on a wound vac that helped me heal faster. The funky part of that story is that just three days before this diagnosis I paid tuition to begin work on a Master of Education degree at SUU spring semester. It has been a fascinating ride, getting sick or falling asleep in class, working with patient professors and cramming up to the very end to complete the semester on time. But it happened and I'm now a person once again, ready to resume blogging!