And We're Off!

A good bit later than expected, but Deb was finally taken into surgery at around 1:15 PM and had to leave me standing outside. So yes, a little more than two hours later than we'd been told.  Why so late?  I'm glad you asked!

Following a late night of trying to get everything in order at home, we got up early this morning, took our showers, I got a little bite to eat (sorry Deb) and we headed out to Swedish hospital on First Hill.  Deb got checked in and they took us back to a pre-op area where Deb got to change into lovely hospital clothes (at least the pants matched the robe) before the sent us up to Nuclear Medicine.  That they let me go too was a happy surprise.

The whole point to going to Nuclear Medicine was to inject Deb with a radioactive dye (technetium 99 if you are interested) in the hope of being able to locate the sentinel lymph nodes for later biopsy during the surgical procedure. They injected Deb on both sides and then told her to spend the next half hour moving her arms around to help the dye make its way to the nodes.  After that 30 minutes they put her into a detector (that looks suspiciously like an MRI or CT machine) for a series of 5-minute images.  Of course they couldn't see anything.

They stood Deb back up and told her go through another 15 minutes of movement. So I led her through some light calisthenics before they put her back in the machine.  They could see a node on one side (the left) but not the side she'd previously had done.  Back up, more movement. I don't think she really minded since this is the last chance at exercise she'll have for a while.  Back in the machine, more imaging, and maybe a ghost of a spot on the right.  They would have carried on longer with more exercise/imaging cycles, but the surgeon called up and said something to the effect of "Hey, where's my patient?"  Done with that, then.

We returned briefly to the first pre-op area and were taken immediately downstairs to the surgical area.  I got to stay with Deb while they put in her IV, the surgeon came and discussed again his plan, and the anesthesiologist came in to give Deb an initial couple of medications (not the sleepy stuff yet).

And then they took her away and kicked me out.  Not that I wasn't expecting that.  I doubt the surgeon wants me in the OR with them, and frankly I don't want to be back there either.

So that was about 1:15 as I stated before.  It is now 2:00 and I've been typing this on my iPad while trying to eat a bite of lunch.  I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors.  I'll come back and edit that later if it's too bad.

There it is.  The adventure has begun in earnest once again.