Drained

I meant to write a post last night, but I was exhausted after a busy day, so ... yeah, sorry about that.

So, the big news right now is that Deb had her first follow-up appointment with her surgeon moved up from Thursday to yesterday.  The reason?  She desperately wanted the surgical drains removed.  I won't go into detail about post-surgical drains for the sake of the possibly squeamish, but they are certainly a nuisance.  Deb was recovering well enough that the drains could come out though, so now they are out (hurrah!).

We also got the pathology report on the removed tissue as well.  The biggest news on that front is that there was no indication that the cancer had moved to the lymph nodes (bigger 'hurrah!' and a sigh of relief).  Every indication is that he was able to get it all.  However, there is still the question of chemotherapy intensity and duration, and whether or not radiation therapy will be included.  Those are things we'll discuss further on Thursday and Friday with the oncologist and the radiation oncologist.

But a brief recap; no more drains (hurrah!), and no lymph node involvement (bigger 'hurrah!').

Other than that, Deb is still making good progress at home, is continuing stepping back the painkiller frequency, and is in pretty good spirits overall.  In fact, she made her first excursion (other than the appointment with the surgeon) yesterday afternoon to the grocery store with her mom.  A brief outing, but hey, baby steps for now, eh?