Post Lumpectomy: Day 4

And so we wait.

And wait.

And wait.

My PCP told me this would be the worst part, and it turns out it's a true story. You know you have cancer, you just don't know if it's okay to be bemoaning the fact that it is going to ruin your summer or if that is the least of your worries. Should you get busy doing all those DIY home improvement projects you had planned or should you be redoing your will and putting together an advance directive?

Around 11:00 today, I got impatient and sent an e-mail to my doctor via the patient portal, just making sure she hadn't gotten any test results yet. She didn't reply right away, so I thought, great, she must not be working today. It is going to kill me to wait and wait and wait even more over the weekend, but it would kill me even more to think I am waiting while the test results are sitting in her office while she is out golfing. However, around 3:00, she replied:

I am so sorry it's taking so long. I think one of the pathologists is on vacation? I have gotten very few results back from this week, but they are starting to trickle in. I'll keep checking and call as soon as I get them.
Jane Kay Listens

Argh! Pathologists should not be allowed to take vacations!

In other news, I am feeling pretty good today. My arm feels better, and I'm able to move it around without excruciating pain. I still cannot really eat, though. Nothing at all seems appealing to me, and after last night's episode, I'm sort of afraid to try. I'm starting to think it is unrelated to the surgery, and it's just stress. Or, because severe hip pain, DVT, and cancer aren't enough, I also need to become anorexic. LOL.

Other news:

• I got brave and started reading breast cancer blogs. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, because a lot of them do not have happy endings. And let me tell you, an unhappy ending in a cancer blog is a lot worse than an unhappy ending in a hip blog. Nevertheless, I have gotten hooked on this blog: http://www.butdoctorihatepink.com/. The woman who writes it is Stage IV, which is incurable and terminal, which is a bit much for me to think about right now. But she writes with such hilarity, it immediately sucked me in. Also, I Googled 'blogs about breast cancer' and, from the list, chose hers because of the title. I, too, HATE PINK. I mean, pink as a color is, eh, whatever. But I hate pink ribbons, I hate seeing girlfriend-beating NFL players wear pink, and I even hate watching breast cancer survivors wearing pink and running a few miles to 'raise awareness.' (WTF does that even mean?) I hated all of these things even before I had cancer, and I hate them even more now. I will never ever wear a pink ribbon and will never see how donning pink and walking any distance will help any cause. (I also think the ice bucket challenge was the stupidest thing ever.) God that sounds bitter. LOL. But I am a scientist, not a marketer.

• I debated whether or not to share my news on Facebook, and in the end I decided to. Facebook is weird, and I don't post a ton there, but at the same time, most of my Facebook friends are actually people who are important to me. And it looks as if cancer is becoming a big enough part of my life that it would be hard to never ever mention it in a status update. So yesterday morning, I threw together this update: 

I know a lot of people find it hard to decide what sort of information to put on Facebook, but I've gone through my friends list and done some 'grooming' so that my future updates, for those of you who read them, aren't cryptic and WTF?-ish. In the past month, I have wrapped up a semester with the usual work stress, completed a semester-long, time-intensive, EMT course, and been diagnosed with breast cancer. In the past three weeks, I've had about a kazillion appointments, have been scanned in just about every possible way (X-ray, ultrasound, CT scan, MRI, and PET scan), been injected with a lot of mean and nasty stuff (iodine, radioactive glucose, gadolinium, Lovenox...), and had a lot of stuff, some of it mean and nasty, taken out of me (blood, tissue samples, tumors...). I had surgery on Monday and am starting to shop around for a medical oncologist before definitively deciding on the plan for Part 2 of this. If you are one of the people who already knew this, I want to say thank you for all of your support - from bringing me and my family food, to making sure A isn't stranded after school, to covering my classes and even 8:00 finals for me while I went to hard-to-get appointments, to posting ridiculous things on my wall to make me laugh, to supporting me while I cried my way through every single EMT practical last Saturday. I hope to be able to use FB to keep people in the loop without becoming one of 'those' people who shares way TMI. Don't worry - I won't be posting any breast selfies. :)

• I was actually pretty amazed and touched by the outpouring of love I got in response. It was very unexpected, and helped buoy my mood. I figured it would be one of those things a few people would 'like' and a few people would respond to by telling me that they would pray for me. LOL. However, I actually got a lot of really meaningful and supportive replies, which made me glad I had gone ahead and shared. I am not a very open person, except in writing; in fact, I think that is why I have to write. Otherwise I'd probably burst. Sharing things with others is a big step for me, and I'm glad I didn't end up regretting it. 

I started writing this about three hours ago, and while I was writing it... my doctor called. I will write about it in a different post.

Drumroll, please.