Today I went back to see Dr. Abbis today to get my stitches out and hopefully the last drain.  Well the stitches came out but not the drain. It’s still too active so maybe at the beginning of next week. Was I nervous! The previous appointment was a bit painful and I guess I was expecting the same today, but it wasn’t half as bad. I’m still quite numb from the nerves having been stretched and cut, but thank God! And I have some fluid back up on the other side where the drain hadn’t produced anything, the non-cancerous side. Dr. Barr found that it was blocked up when he removed it on Monday, and that’s why it wasn’t producing any fluid. Once you take the drain out, you can’t put it back in.  It’s pretty painful but Dr. Abbis feels there isn’t enough fluid in there to warrant “draining by needle”. She’s keeping an eye on it and if it progresses, she’ll do it. I’m told it’s more of a relief than it is painful. So if that’s what will happen to the other side, that little drain can stay in for a while longer. Just hope it’s out by Thursday when I’ll see Dr. Chatson, my plastic surgeon. He’s going to add saline to my expanders. He’s going “pump me up”, and I don’t know if he’ll do it if I still have the drain in. I’m also seeing Dr. Rao, my oncologist on the same day to learn more about what my chemotherapy treatments will entail, and what meds I’ll be on to attempt to maintain a half-way normal lifestyle. It should be very interesting and informative.

Dr. Abbis went over my pathology report with me a bit more thorough today.  I saw Dr. Barr on Monday to have my dressings removed, and he had given me only a briefing on what the report said. I think mainly to relieve my anxiety of the possibility that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. Dr. Abbis reiterated all the good news and she told me that there were some existing precancerous cells found in my “healthy breast”, which would have most probably led to a second bout of breast cancer in the upcoming years. I am so glad that I opted for the bilateral mastectomy. My biggest fear was to have to go through this all over again just when life got back to normal. I still haven’t gotten back the genetic test results yet. In the matter of fact I got a call from the company doing them on Tuesday stating that they had completed the research on whether my insurance would cover the testing and asked if I still wanted to go through with it. I was disappointed to hear that the testing hadn’t even been initiated yet. I was told that my oncologist would have the results in about three weeks. Waiting for results is awful.

I’d like to say that I accomplished my goal of the week. John and I went to Giorgio’s for dinner. It was nice to have a little normalcy back. I still have my appetite but my portions are probably half of what I could eat before. Guess I shouldn’t complaint. Maybe I’ll drop a few pounds.  I got permission from Dr. Abbis to have a glass of wine seeing as I’m not on any meds except for Ibuprofen. That glass of wine never tasted so good. I think I’m going to set a new goal every week and work towards it. Felt great to accomplish such a small feat. I’ll have to think about next week’s task. Oh yeah, I got permission to drive again, using my own discretion. Freedom!!!