Cancer Update: Home!
Please note, this language was adapted from an email, so please pardon if there are any lingering email references.
Greetings from the cozy corner of my couch! I have been home for over 24 hours, which is great. So nice to get some sleep last night where someone didn't knock on my door every two hours to check my blood pressure.
AT THE HOSPITAL
Our call time to check in was 5am, with surgery scheduled for 7:30am -- I would say bright and early, but, man, was it still SO dark outside. Nice not to have too much time to wait. Ryan got to hang out with me before surgery, and I was fully awake until they got me settled on the operating table, which I enjoyed (last time they gave me woozy meds before they wheeled me back, which I did not enjoy). I even got to scoot myself onto the operating table, which made me feel like a participant. I had a big team of people supporting my surgery, and I got to pick out the music. I requested "spa music or 2000s hip hop" which made the nurses chuckle. They went for spa music, but I was still secretly hoping for some Ying Yang Twins in the middle.
I found this round of anesthesia so much better to wake up from. And in fact, I was feeling overwhelmingly normal upon waking up. And continue to. I attribute this to opting for Tylenol over narcotics, and that's the best decision I could have made. I even managed to eat my own cup of ice chips with a spoon pretty quickly after waking up. "She's doing amazing" was the refrain of my very kind nurse, which buoyed my time adjusting back to the real world.
I then got wheeled to a cozy little recovery bay with very attentive nurses. All of my vitals were stable in the hospital (dare I say impressive?), which lent to my early-in-the-day discharge the next morning. My Mom and Ryan bought me a Jellycat heart (those of you who know me, know my true love of Jellycat stuffed animals. #NoShameInTheSoftComfortGame) which ended up being a very effective phone stand and eye mask overnight.
I did encourage my Mom and Ryan to go home to get some solid rest, which was an A+ choice because they both passed out right away. I had a pleasant night overnight listening to more "spa music" on my AirPods (an actual godsend in a noisy hospital) and watching re-runs of Queer Eye on Netflix.
I feel like this is starting to sound like a food blogger ramble, but there's no recipe at the end! Stick with me, in a moment, I'll talk about what's next.
AT HOME!
I'm home now and convalescing on the couch. Ryan and my Mom have been waiting on me hand and foot, though I have made a point to move around when I'm feeling up to it. In fact, my Mom and I even took a walk around the block this afternoon, which felt quite nice. And I made a grain-free Belgian waffle to accompany my lunchtime Tylenol, so things are coming up waffles!
Tylenol alone has been super effective, and not taking hydrocodone (which I am apparently allergic to and highly sensitive to) has made this recovery so much better. I'm also not taking extra calcium supplements -- if they damage your parathyroid glands, which regulate your calcium levels, you have to take calcium supplements -- but taking added calcium when you don't need it, makes your groggy and nauseated. Or it did for me last surgery, anyway. Overall I feel pretty gosh darn good. Last surgery I thought I was feeling pretty good, but turns out it was all relative. Looking back I felt pretty awful by comparison, but at least at the time I thought things were great. This time, things are actually pretty great.
I'm looking forward to showering tomorrow, yay! Especially because I have the equivalent of a football play mapped out in marker on my neck still, as well as a soft orange glow of antiseptic wash (which I sponged some amount of off yesterday).
Beyond that, I'm cleared for light exercise (walks outside) right away and within a few weeks can do whatever amount of exercise I can tolerate (which for me is gentle movement and getting back to yoga when I'm ready; softball will come later).
Just after arriving home yesterday
This afternoon getting fresh air!
Next appointment: Feb. 27th with my surgeon.
After some follow-up bloodwork to check my vitals and tumor markers, I will meet with my surgeon on the 27th. There she will tell me how many lymph nodes they removed, and critically, how many showed growth. (last time I had 5 removed and 3 showed growth) The goal of this surgery was to remove most of the lymph nodes in the immediate left part of my neck, because that's where the cancer has been setting up shop over and over.
My stitches will dissolve on their own and the bandages will fall off on their own over the next two weeks. If not, I'll take them off before my video visit with the surgeon. As you can see, my incision was about 4" or so, nearly twice as large as my original incision. But honestly it's still a wonder it's not even larger than it is considering they went around taking lymph nodes out from all around the left side of my neck. Wild stuff!
Lymph nodes are a critical part of your immune system, most humans have upwards of 800 in their body! I recently wrote to a friend about lymph nodes (waves hi!) so I thought I might just copy-paste that here:
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know more about lymphatic drainage (this is the sort of thing I'm not afraid to Google, hah!). One cancer site specifies: "A small bean-shaped structure that is part of the body's immune system. Lymph nodes filter substances that travel through the lymphatic fluid, and they contain lymphocytes (white blood cells) that help the body fight infection and disease." It drains/circulates fluid to help move your white blood cells around. That leads me to think: the less lymph nodes, the more susceptible to infection/disease. Likewise, without proper drainage, it causes swelling. Lymphatic drainage massages can alleviate the swelling -- hence why some people do it to help their complexions (if only skincare was the biggest thing on my body to-do list these days, hah).
So, once I check my tumor markers and speak to the surgeon, I'll know more about how to best take care of myself going forward and what trajectory my cancer is on. Hopefully my tumor markers are super low, which would indicate that most of the disease was localized to the lymph nodes they removed. If not, we'll discuss what would need to happen to determine where other growth might be hanging out. We'll cross that cancer bridge when we get there!
I'll plan to send out another update once I know more and then hopefully I'll be pretty quiet after that, because it would mean my cancer is stable and I have no news to report. That said, I've really enjoyed writing these updates and appreciate the kind words I've gotten in response. xo
^^ Actual footage of me this week
Thank you to everyone who has reached out! If I haven't replied to you, just know that I've read all of the messages and so appreciate your well wishes.