Quick Update - Meetings with Surgeons

Four.  Count 'em. Four.


Four Doctor's appointments today.  One for healing (the chiropractor); One for the removal of drains (plastic surgeon) - Yeah!!; One for information( the genetic counselor, which was fascinating and scary at the same time); and one for clarity and future scheduling of surgery (Breast surgeon).


We are getting really tired of waiting room music and waiting room television.


We love our Chiropractors (Dr. Tim and Dr. Jack) - they are so helpful and provide Julie a lot of relief. (Me too). We are grateful for them!


Good news (and answer to prayer) - the drains came out, Julie can shower.  Our water bill is going to go up, and I might need to go to the neighbors to get any hot water for the next few days. Its kinda weird, but he has to stretch the skin for a few days to give as much room possible for Dr. Green to excise the rest of the cancer.  He does this by stretching the skin through inserting fluid into the expander, then right before surgery, removing liquid from the expander (yes, another doctor visit). This puts us 2 steps back in the reconstruction process, but it is what it is.


We learned a lot from the genetic counselor - its amazing that they have isolated 2 genes that they can test for abnormalities.


We had a good meeting with Dr. Green (breast surgeon/specialist). She is a rock star.  She was extremely helpful in explaining the pathology report and how the cancer was missed, and why we need to do another surgery.  The net of it is that under the microscope, the pathologist found a few cancer cells that were right at the edge of the tissue that was removed (tumor plus "margin" tissue). They want to have a negative margin around the tissue to ensure no cancer was left behind. If there are cancer cells on the edge, then as a precaution, they go back into to remove more tissue to ensure a negative margin. This is something that you never know until the pathology report comes back because during surgery, they only have the naked eye, not a microscopic view of what gets removed.


She (Dr. Green) is going to work with the general surgeon so that we can do the second removal surgery and the insertion of a port for chemotherapy at the same time (another answer to prayer). We won't know until tomorrow or even Thursday when that will be.  Maybe this Friday, but most likely early next week.


Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers - they are felt, appreciated and God is working through them.  In addition to prayer requests from yesterday, here are two more specific requests:

• Julie really needs specific prayer regarding the chemo process and losing her hair.  Please pray that God would change her heart about this. That there would be no fear, no loss of dignity, no loss of feeling like a woman.
• This may seem like an odd one, but I strongly felt the Lord impressing this idea in my   head - that somehow, by His grace, this next year would be our best year ever. That we'd find joy in the little things, that we would be closer as a couple, closer to Him, closer as a family, and that we (the collective we) would all grow closer as the body of Christ. 

Please don't forget to read the post on race for the cure (Race For The Cure Blogpost ), we'd love you to join us!

Gotta run to Home Depot to buy an extra hot water heater now... :-)