At least Larry has left my “building”….he is somewhere in a Methodist lab ready to be tested. Results may not come in for at least 48 hours, so more waiting time. :-). I didn’t talk to Dr. Rohman after the surgery but she talked to David and she said it went well and was “easy”. The main lymph node was about half-dollar size (or for those that have no idea what a half-dollar is, about 1-1/2 inch square or so)? She also took out some smaller lymph nodes that she thought should be tested also. So it sounds like the size is what Dr. Chen hoped to get!!
The process at Methodist went good…they were ready for us as soon as we got up to the surgery desk at 12:50. They took me back first while I got changed and the IV put in. It was quite a challenge getting my leg brace off on the bed, but all worked out fine. David came in once I was ready to go and then more waiting started. Although one of the nurses, Jenna, who was very nice, was also quite the chatty Cathy, telling us about her daughter’s experience at Mayo trying to figure out a diagnosis for her 16 year old. Has been quite a difficult year for their family as her daughter went from a very active 15 year old, runner, class cabinet, etc. to a very sick young lady. Different specialists have different diagnosis, but she felt after the Mayo special program she felt she has improved about 2%, which to their family was great progress. Jenna did help pass the time for us with her story, so it was ok that she was chatty-Cathy.
We did learn that St. Mary’s, at Mayo, where I also had my surgery, at one time was a nunnery. And in fact a number of the nuns are still living there, most well into their 70-80’s made the stay more interesting for Jenna and her daughter. As part of the program they stayed with the nuns in a home like setting where all the kids in the program had daily chores, etc. Jenna said the living area has not really changed since the late 50’s even with 50ish type wall paper and some of the furnishings from that same area or more like the 60’s. David and I talked about some of our experiences with nuns in school and certainly some of these nuns were in that age range, but sounds like they may have mellowed in their old age! LOL
The neck area was sore last night…The stitches are self dissolving, and the bandages on top will fall off on their own. Since I was sore, more the muscles were pretty sore, I did take both the oxy and gabapentin, which generated some crazy, crazy dreams!! WOW is all I can say!! I may see why some people like to take oxy for “fun”. The dreams were crazy and sooo colorful! It was one strange experience. The doctor prescribed 5 oxy pills since I told her I did not want a lot, and I will see if Tylenol/non-Tylenol regime combats the pain good enough. The doctor said I can’t lift anything over 10 lbs….or do anything that would cause me to grimace. Not sure if I will be able to do all of the quad sets during PT since I am pretty sure I grimace to try to help with the lifting…but maybe that is not at the level she is concerned with. Not sure!!
We got home about 6:30, and I was feeling pretty groggy. Had a little supper…no coffee…even though I tried to talk the nurses into putting caffeine in the IV…I waited until this morning to have my coffee. Since they put a tube down my throat, I do have a sore throat, which is expected. The warm coffee and cough drops help with that also.
We got up early this morning, to hopefully watch Starship 3 take off around 7-8. Watching it in the theatre room is fun on the big screen! Yes, I made it downstairs for the first time in almost 3 months. YEA!!
Have a great day everyone! As soon as I hear anything will post that story here.
Keep sunny today and not cloudy!! 🙂
Dandy Ventures 