A few thoughts

I'm going to go into work for a few hours tomorrow.  I was planning on going in today in the afternoon, but I over did it in the morning and ended up sleeping most of the afternoon.  I'm surprised how much energy it takes to heal! I feel pretty much like my old self again, except that I still have to baby my left leg.  The skin is very tight where they stitched it up and I'm paranoid I'm going to rip the stitches.  I'm actually well past the point of that being a danger, but I'm not taking any chances.  I also have to remember that although I'm getting my strength back, I'm not quite there yet :)

I have an appointment next Thursday with the surgeon.  He will be checking my leg to see how it's healing and we should have the sentinel node biopsy results by then.  No sense dwelling on it.  We'll find out when we find out.

I got the nicest email yesterday from Sandra, a very nice lady who works for Concordia Lutheran Seminary (the sem in Edmonton).  I met her in February when I went out there and got to have a nice long chat with her when we were out again in May.  Since then we've kept in touch, emailing back and forth a few times about a course that I was interested in taking.  Yesterday she emailed to let me know that the whole seminary is praying for me!  That is one of the nice things about belonging to a relatively small church body - you get  to know people and pretty soon you have this family stretching from one end of the country to the other.  I can't begin to tell you how much of a comfort and encouragement it is to know that there's this network of people all across Canada and the US that are praying for me.  It is very humbling.

My pastor came over for a visit this morning and he brought me Holy Communion.  We had a chat and he, of course, wanted to know how I'm doing, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually and emotionally. We talked and looked at pictures of Mearrik and then before he left he communed me.  If you've never had private communion before, it is a special experience.  It is almost like a "mini" Divine Service beginning with the Absolution, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and other prayers and then the Service of the Sacrament.  Now, it is one thing to kneel at the communion rail and receive the Lord's body and blood and hear the pastor say "Take, eat, this is the true Body and Blood of the Lord, given and shed for you" and understand that "for you" is both for you personally, but also for the others kneeling there collectively.  When I receive communion at the altar, I am surrounded by my family and friends and |I am very conscious of the collective "for you-ness".  In fact, to receive communion side by side with a dear friend is something I cherish deeply.  I become acutely aware of the connection that we have to each other - connected through the Spirit, yes, but also connected physically to each other as the Lord Himself gives his very body and blood to us for strength and forgiveness.  But in private communion, it is the personal "for you-ness" that comes to the fore.  It is intensely personal and intimate to hear the pastor say "Anita, take, eat...take, drink..." and place his hands on my bowed head as he assures me that this is my Lord, who died for me and who rose again and promised that He would be with me to the very end of the age - and He is! - here in this common bread and wine, that He gives again and again to strengthen and preserve my faith.

In this current trial, He is not absent from me; he is present, as He promised he would be.  Not in some mystical, spiritual way, but really, physically here.  For me.  This is what keeps me going.

Tuesday's surgery

So, I had surgery on Tuesday.  I had a "wide area excision" and a "sentinel node biopsy".  It was day surgery and I was at the hospital pretty much the whole day.

When I had the tumour on my leg removed in August, no one suspected that it was cancer.  The growth was just bothering me so I elected to have it removed cosmetically.  The surgeon removed the growth, which he initially thought was a psoriasis lession or a cyst, and sewed my leg back up.  The tissue was sent off to be biopsied as a matter of course, but no one was expecting it to come back malignant.

When it turned out that it was, in fact, malignant, they called me back in and explained that I would need to have more surgery.  Normally when a tumour is suspected of being melanoma, the tumour itself along with a "border" of skin surrounding it is removed.  The size and depth of the tumour determines how big of an area needs to be removed.  In my case it needed to be a 2-3 cm margin.

The pathology report on the tissue came back with some findings that indicated that the cancer is "moderately aggressive".  Some of the indications that the cancer may have spread are:

• if the tumour is 4mm or more in thickness (mine was 23mm)
• the length of time it has been growing (18 month in my case)
• the rate of mitosis - ie. how quickly the cancer cells are reproducing (mine were turning over rapidly)
• if the tumour has ulcerated (mine did - it was what prompted me to have it removed)
• swelling of the lymph nodes can be felt by a physician (mine could not be felt)

Based on the pathology report and physical examination, the surgical oncologist felt that there was a "significant" chance that the cancer has already spread from the original tumour site to the lymph nodes in the groin.  

Apparently removing all of the lymph nodes in the area has a pretty high risk of complications, so they don't like to remove them all unless it's necessary.  Instead, they remove a few of them to be thoroughly biopsied.  If they don't find cancer cells in the ones they remove, then they assume that the rest are ok too.

When they explained that to me, I thought it sounded like a bit of a crap shoot - I mean what if they biopsied the wrong lymph nodes?  But actually they know that this cancer progresses in a pretty orderly fashion and that it will traverse the lymph nodes in the same order that the fluids in the body ordinarily drain into the lymph nodes.  If they can determine that "order" in my body, then they can remove first 3 or 4 in the chain closest to to tumour.  If there is no cancer in the first bunch, then it probably hasn't gone beyond into the latter nodes.

So a few hours before I went into surgery, I went down to nuclear medicine where they shot me up with a radioactive tracer in the tumour site.  The tracer then went off to the lymph nodes.  After a while, the lymph nodes that had taken up the tracer began to glow in the dark  KIDDING!!!  No, they could see it on the scanner and a doctor then used that to kind of draw a map with magic marker on my groin and abdomen for the surgeon.  That part I'm NOT making up.  So they had the scans and the magic marker map and then during the surgery itself they injected me with a blue dye that goes to the nodes as well - they are really well prepared before they start cutting.

The surgery only took about an hour and a half.  The tests, and pre-op procedures took much longer than that.  All and all I was in at 7:30 in the morning and out around 6 pm.  Long day.

The recovery has been much easier than I thought it would be.  I don't have much pain any more (although the first night and day were bad).  I just have to be really careful that I don't bang my leg or use it too strenuously because until the skin has stretched out, there is a chance that it can split open.  EWWWWW!!!!

In a week or so I should find out the results of the sentinel node biopsy.  I hope they don't find anything, but I have been mentally preparing myself for that eventuality.  In a couple of days I can take off the bandages and see what my leg looks like.  I am a bit squeamish with that kind of stuff, so that should be interesting.

About a boy

Mearrik was born on September 11th.  He came about 3 and a half weeks early.  Hope's labour and delivery was quick and relatively uneventful - she felt her first pains around 10 am, was admitted to hospital around 1:30 pm and baby was born at 8:25 pm.

We got to see him briefly about half an hour after his birth and then he had to go to NICU for observation.  Partly because they wanted to observe for Dandy-Walker related issues and partly because he was a bit early.  He ended up staying there a little over a week - the longest week of my life!  Even though we went down every day to McMaster, only Kirk and Hope were allowed into the NICU to see him.  This was for the protection of the other babies who were very sick and could not risk the chance of germs coming in.

Now he is home and doing awesome!  I am so proud of Hope - she is a natural little mother.  Kirk too - he's always been good with little ones and he seems very at ease with his son.

I could look at that cute little fellow all day long :)

Today Mearrik is going to the doctor's for his first well-baby visit. I'm sure the doctor will be impressed.

It is a bit weird, your kids having kids.  I am really trying not to be one of those buttinski mothers but it's going to be hard for me.  Not because the kids are doing things wrong - I'm just a bossy cow by nature :)  so this is gonna be a challenge for me.  Long ago, when our kids were still little and this wasn't even a concern, Ken and I worked out a prearranged signal - the "STAND DOWN" signal.  It is a very embarrassing signal.  So I'm doing my best not to give him cause to use it.  It's quite motivating< actually.

New blog

I've had so many phone calls, emails and messages over the last couple of weeks from folks who are wondering how things are going with my situation and with the baby and it's got to the point where I can't remember who I've responded to and what I've updated them on.  It's hard to try and keep up with it all!

So I'm gonna blog again.  This is probably the fastest and most efficient way of keeping everyone up to date.

For those of you just joining in, a couple of important things have happened in my life recently:  I became a grandmother, and I got cancer.  You can not even begin to imagine how these two events have rocked my world.

Today's update will be brief because I am tired...

Had surgery on Tuesday.  I am sore and tired but it went well all things considered.  Kirk and Hope came over to visit today and I got to feed Mearrik.  That made my day :)