Surgery #2

Two weeks after my initial surgery I found myself back at Community Medical Center—this time for a sentinel lymph node biopsy on the left side.

My cousin Joe drove me to the hospital for my 7 am check-in and by 8 am I was headed back to the strange room in the basement where they injected the radioactive tracer which allowed the surgeon to be able to find the lymph node via her gamma detection probe. After eight injections (4 pain meds and 4 dye), I was wheeled back upstairs for blood work and an EKG.

My surgeon was squeezing my surgery in between an already busy clinic day, so I had a long wait (about four hours) in the pre-op area. I knew this in advance, so I brought a book a long, took a cat nap, and chatted on and off with the same nurse that I had last time—who is also a breast cancer survivor.

As surgery got closer, the anesthesiologist stopped by for his visit. It was a different doctor from the previous surgery, and I had to stifle some giggles when he entered my room…it was a full on Doogie Howser, MD moment! I thought there was no way he could be the doc…he looked like a teenager!

Soon after my surgeon arrived for a quick check-in and to brief me on the procedure. An OR nurse arrived next to wheel me into the operating room. I thought I recognized one of the OR nurses from the last surgery—the one who held my hand as I drifted off. But she said it wasn’t her and that she doesn’t work on Fridays, which was the day of my last surgery. We all got a good laugh when the other nurse in her thick Danish accent piped up and said it definitely wasn’t her because she doesn’t hold patients’ hands! As the oxygen mask was put on, the original nurse I had mistaken from last time grabbed my hand and smiled.

The last three times I’ve had general anesthesia I drifted off almost immediately after the medication started. This time was different. My eyes were closed, but I could see a strange beige color. Most disturbing, however, was that I could still hear all the sounds in the OR, especially the beeping monitors. I had a sudden moment of panic thinking, “Oh, no, wonder if I don’t go all the way out and what if I feel and hear everything that is going on.” So, I decided to try to speak up. I mumbled through the oxygen mask, “I can still hear the beeps!” Thankfully that was the last thing I remember before waking up.

Surgery went smoothly and this time they gave me anti-nausea medication in the form of a patch that I put behind my ear, so I didn’t have the same side-effect of throwing up repeatedly like last time. My mom and aunt arrived from Great Falls just in time for my discharge, about ten hours after my arrival. I went home and almost immediately fell asleep until the next morning.

When I woke up the only pain I had was in my throat. Last time my throat hurt as well, but this time it felt different. I finally grabbed a flashlight and looked in the mirror and was shocked to see my uvula (that weird little piece of tissue that hangs down in the back of our throats) swollen, bright red with white patches, and so elongated that the tip was resting on my tongue; a result of trauma from the intubation during surgery.  

Four days later and it isn’t getting worse, but it isn’t getting better either. I’ve scheduled a follow-up with my provider to have it checked out. So, other than uvulitis, I’m doing fine. I’m anxious to find out if the left lymph node registers clear of cancer cells, as well as the HER2 status of the left tumor, and the oncotypes of both tumors. The oncotype is important because it helps doctors determine if chemotherapy is likely to be beneficial or not. Once all that information is in hand we can finally move on to determining what the treatment plan will be.