1 Surgery Down, 4 (at least) to go

So my 1st surgery (see description from post below) took place on Wednesday. A HUGE BLESSING is that my gracious sister drove over from Oregon City and stayed with my children all day during this surgery taking on 4 children (including her own) for hours and hours. The reports seemed favorable and I hope they were good for her. The plus side is that her & Presley got a ton of bonding time and it was really cute watching the 2 of them together. Much gratitude to you, Michele, you really came through in a quickly thrown together pinch for me. I will never forget it, I love you!

That being said, I checked into the hospital at 8:30am with Teague which was 90 minutes prior to the surgery. So I thought. Once there I was told my surgery wasn't until noon. Um, why am I here 3.5 hours early? Did they forget I hadn't eaten anything since 6pm the night before and am totally starving? In actuality, they didn't tell me that some prep procedures were taking place at 10am and that my actual surgery wasn't until noon. There seemed to be a lot of confusion of what was taking place among some of the staff since this surgery was scheduled so quickly. I hoped they knew what they were doing!

I'll try & be brief on everything that took place since I tend to go on and on anyway:
-got an IV; I'm such a baby when it comes to this and always have discomfort the entire time it's in -I headed to the Kearney Breast Center (have I mentioned how much I love this office? Super nice and pink everywhere!) to get 4 shots in an unmentionable area in order to distribute dye and show which node is closest to my tumor so the surgeon can take it out. I was awake for this and not-too-happy about it. It wasn't bad & the major plus was that I was able to visit Deb (my sweet friend Stacie's mom) and get some encouragement prior to this procedure. She is a wonderful, supportive believer and was exactly what I needed, as usual, when I'm at this office which has been kind of a lot lately
-Back to the surgical floor where I found the most precious note in my cubicle from a friend who is an OR nurse, Ruth. Although she wasn't working on my case (awkward!), she saw on the surgical board that I was there and left a beautiful scripture for me. A short while later she stopped by to visit which was so wonderful; to have another support person pulling for me and giving encouragement was His doing for sure. Plus she looked super cute all preggo and in her goggles and scrubs. Love you Ruth!
-wheeled into the OR for about 10 minutes until I passed out---yay!

I did have a few tears when I was leaving Teague. Not from fear, but from trying to get out that could-be-last conversation prior to surgery about last wishes and hopes for the kids and horrible unpleasantness like that. The tears prevented me from getting these words out and probably didn't make him feel that great about leaving me as well, since it probably came across as me being completely terrified. Of course God made sure it wasn't our last conversation. Don't you just love Him?

I will say that I felt a lot of peace prior to everything going down. I'm generally a person that gets pretty nervous for things, but I haven't felt the anxiety I thought I would. That is all you and all your prayers people :) It's amazing how your words to Him on your own time and from so many of you can translate to physical calmness right when I needed it. A dear friend (thank you again, Sarah!) directed me toward a blog that talked of how our friends 'cover us like a blanket' with prayers, encouragement and comfort and it is the perfect description of how I feel these days. Each of you is a patch on my quilt and I feel you around me constantly. How I love to be warm & snuggly!

Funny unrelated sidebar: my surgeon does not enjoy when I ask her questions based on my experience watching "Grey's Anatomy". I cannot imagine why. She likens the drama's accuracy & probability to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." Needless to say, I plan to keep those questions coming just for fun anyway.

So after the surgery I have 3 incisions, but they're pretty small. The port has a wire directly to my jugular which flashes me back to way too many horror flicks. The surgeon also doesn't like when I use the phrase "stab in the jugular", but it's not totally incorrect, in my opinion anyway. The best news of the day is that at first glance, my lymph nodes look clean. Praise the Lord! Of course more testing will be done and I should have a final answer next week, but this would be a gigantic victory :)

NEXT STEP: I've got some blood work & an echo (sp?) scheduled for Monday, my PET scan scheduled for Tuesday morning (soooo can't wait to drive to Portland in rush hour traffic), and a meeting with my Oncologist w/ possible Chemo Treatment #1 on Wednesday. Whew!

PRAYER REQUESTS: Since I still don't have my results back for whether or not I'm carrying a cancer gene, please be praying I don't carry it and also please be praying that my lymph nodes are free of any cancer.

Thank you Sweet Friends :)