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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Prepping for surgery

I talked with a pre-surgery nurse today and watched a couple of their "this is what to expect" videos,  Here's what I know so far:

Night before - take a shower / use clean washcloth and towel / wear clean pjs in a clean sheets bed.

No food or drink after midnight. Not usually a real biggie for me, but one side effect of the anti-estrogen med I'm taking is that it makes me thirsty, so my current norm is to get a drink of water 1/2 way through the night. I have a feeling I'll be REALLY thirsty on surgery day.

April 4 - Surgery Day!
Take another shower / use clean washcloth and towel / wear clean clothes.

9:00am - check in at St. Vincent's Hospital.

All times after this are ESTIMATES, they are careful to keep emphasizing.

Sometime after check-in - go back to short stay unit / Jon can come with

10:30ish - get a wire put into the tumor (since the tumor isn't super large, the wire (a teeny thing) is a clear indicator of exactly where the tumor is). Don't know if Jon comes along - sorta thinking "not."

11:00ish -get nuclear dye put in - this shows which lymph node the tumor drains into; then during surgery, the surgeon will remove the first node the dye reaches (the sentinel node) and send it to be tested. It's a big improvement from the "olden days" when they'd just remove ALL the lymph nodes. Again, don't know if Jon "gets" to come along for this. Back to short stay (with Jon) to wait for...

1:00 - surgery scheduled - they tell you to bring a book and that there's a TV in the room. I anticipate lots of waiting.

Length of surgery - anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours - "ish."

Recovery room and then home. Lots of water please!!

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