Just like Dr. Walker's secretary promised, I was home for lunch after surgery today! In fact, I was home in time for coffee before lunch!!
Seems like everything went very well, and I'm feeling surprisingly well (surprising to me at least!), though I think the freezing is starting to wear off around the incision sites. There is a 2 x 4 inch dressing centred around 1:00 in the upper left breast, plus a smaller dressing, closer to the armpit, over the site where they took 2 sentinel lymph nodes.
Dr. Walker was brusque and "all business" when I first saw him this morning, but he softened and smiled behind his mask when I asked about his recent holiday. He said it was terrific. And then when I told him that I had heard such good things about him when people asked about my surgeon, he said that he hoped he wouldn't disappoint.
All the staff at Hotel Dieu were kind and friendly, from the COVID screener to the nurses to the porter. The anesthesiologist stands out for her compassion and reassuring manner. Her first name is Joy, and once we were in the OR, she joked that when the "disco lights" come on, after I went to sleep, the staff dances around the room. I replied that that seemed fitting for her first name.
Just as people have told me, one minute you are in the OR (joking with Joy, in my case) and the next minute you are in recovery, where I had a lovely student nurse, Ali, who was on her last day on her post-op rotation. She got me a mango popsicle, which tasted SO GOOD — and then got me another one, which was also very refreshing.
So, now I really am going to have some lunch, and then join my online breast cancer support group at 1:00 ... and then probably have a nap...
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for all your messages and support. It means so much— I can't express it in words — but my heart is full, and it has been so reassuring.
Here's a photo from yesterday with my new glasses and new spring hair!
(Oh - and the photo at the top is the 1000 piece puzzle that got completed last week (just in time for spring planting season!) after about FIVE WEEKS. It was a little too hard, but really beautiful.)
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
