My mom and I went ahead and did the “cranial prosthesis” shopping, aka wig shopping. The store we went to actually had a lot of very nice looking wigs – we discovered that the wigs tend to show off a full head of hair. I have always had pretty thin hair, so they looked a bit funny. We stopped shopping brunette pretty quickly (dark hair and skin that doesn’t tan = ghostly white, just doesn’t look great on me).
The "Sharon" wig (Ozzy Osborn's wife)
The cute little blonde curls were a little too much for me, so I had to bring out my wild side.
I need to dye my wiggy roots.
Hmmm, sweet, but maybe too innocent.
I could be on the Brady Bunch I promise.
Look at those banging bangs.
This wig practically makes me look like another person, wait it is another person, my mom decided to go blonde.
If only I really could grow hair this long and luxurious.
The one that I purchased was the one that made me feel like I looked the most like “me.” This sort of threw off the ladies that ran the store because my hair is so short and much darker right now.
The wig I bought, makes me look just a little more like "me"
We also learned why you need a prescription – a cheaper wig is about $100, a good wig is over $300.
Delicious strawberries sent to us today.
A few people have worried that I am not going through the natural mourning process related to cancer and the surgery and treatments related to it. I just wanted to let you know that I have certainly spent my fair share of time mourning the loss of my health, my ability to keep my life and career at the same level in the coming months and of course the loss of my breasts.
Being diagnosed with breast cancer is not a joyous event, it comes with a lot of stress, a lot of fear and a good amount of emotional pain. The first month was so filled with waiting and wondering and deep fears of the unknown. Every doctor’s appointment was a huge drain based on the new information that we had to digest. We then had to try to communicate what was going on to other people while trying to internalize it at the same time is a challenge that you face when diagnosed with something like cancer. The blog has really helped as there are things we want to talk about, but repeating the details gets tiresome and we have lives to live! So I appreciate everyone using this as a resource for those details, even if I seem to blog too much (which it seems like it to me, but when I skip a day I hear about it 
).
I am not sure what I would be doing without Mike. It is amazing to have the unconditional love from someone who you know still thinks you are pretty darn ok, even if you are crying your eyes out because you accidentally bumped into the wall when looking for a calendar and are a huge emotional wreck over little stupid things that shouldn’t make you so sad. He has been by my side through every tear and every fear. Something like this can certainly strain a relationship, and I feel that ours has strengthened, and I am lucky to have him.
My family, especially my mom, and friends have been integral in my emotional well being through this process. I would never have known where to start without my Aunt Lalove’s breast cancer experience, it is terrible that she has been through this, but I am very grateful that she was able to point me in the right direction for surgery and making progress. I have also built a deep appreciation for women like Candace and Michelle. Friends that I have made along the way who understand the specifics related to being a younger woman with breast cancer and can answer my silly emotional questions. Setting realistic expectations has certainly saved me some heartbreak that would have come further down the road.
My response to everything is that I just want to make progress - there is a light at the end of this tunnel, I can see it, and I want to get there. I have approached each unknown item expecting a bit of the worst of it, because I am then super happy when I find out that it may not have to be everything that I was expecting. It is unique to think you “just found” what you thought was new cancer and it turns out to have been there a very long time – we are still lucky that we did catch it when we did, because it was getting ready to move to more places.
I may joke and make light of some of the things I am going through, but I am actively working on being optimistic and enjoying the silly little things that this experience brings into my life. I understand the gravity of what I am going through, but sitting around dwelling on the worst of it won’t get me where I want to be 4 years from now (healthy and kicking butt in my career).
Some of the specifics that I know people in my situation go through and my personal reactions to them are:
Health – Sadly I don’t really care about being sick, I care about missing out on work and life. My response to this is that I will work as much as I can without hurting my health and will try to continue a normal life as much as I can. My life didn’t stop the day I found out I had cancer, I don’t intend to become a hermit. We have a boat, I fully expect to get some bald camping in and lazing in the sunshine and water this summer. I will have good days, and I will have bad days, but my world won’t go on pause for me to get better. This made me the saddest at first, but really having my treatment plan and expectations laid out – really helps me think through how I want to get through the coming months and make the most of them. I just needed a “plan.”
My hair done up for a friend's wedding.
Hair - I don’t love my new haircut, I don’t want to lose my hair, but I understand that it comes with the territory. It makes me sad, but hair grows back, and I get to stock up on some cute hats in the process. I have found that my really short hair has made be feel a bit less feminine, but this just means I will probably find ways to counteract this with clothing and accessories to feel a bit more feminine again. I went wig shopping with my mom, which I will post about later on, and we found that what I wanted was a wig that made me feel like “me” rather than something radically different. There is enough “different” going on that a little normal is ok. It is the little unexpected things that creep up on you that end up hitting you the hardest out of the blue emotionally – I may find that hair is one of those. I just don’t know yet, but I do know that it does make me sad, and I think wigs are scratchy.
Breasts – I had a bilateral mastectomy for my breast cancer, which means I did remove pretty much all of the tissue inside of both of my breasts. What I did keep was the skin and my nipples, because the surgeons I chose do skin sparing mastectomies, and my cancer was far enough away from my skin that I could keep it. I walked out of surgery with breasts just a little bit smaller than I had when I went in (with expanders that will help grow them back out before my final reconstruction). Is it the same as what I had? Certainly not. I am giving up all sensation and my chest will forever be numb – to the point that I will never be able to use an ice pack on them or stand over a pot of boiling water (not that I stand with my breasts directly over boiling water regularly anyway).
Does this make me sad? Of course, wow, losing a major part of what women are raised to attribute to their sexual nature is scary, it is sad, and this is why I had so much stress over my breast reconstruction options. Is it the end of the world? No, I am so grateful that I walked out of surgery with physical breasts that actually look pretty ok (a recent phenomenon in the world of breast cancer that I am extremely grateful for), and I know my husband loves me either way. I have taken the time to mourn their loss, and I am sure I will again when the reconstruction occurs. If the choice is life or my boobs, the boobs can certainly take a hike.
Children – This is a touchy one, I know several people have wanted to ask, but were polite enough not to. The treatment I am receiving may or may not make me infertile. We could take the extra precautions necessary to save some eggs and go for it later, but this costs a lot of money for something that we weren’t really planning on in the first place (not to mention, I am not allowed to take any hormones…. ever). So I decided that this is something that we will leave to the cards, if we decide to try later on and it works than so be it. If we never decide to, that is ok also (our dogs keep us busy enough as it is). This is honestly not in my top 10 things to worry about, mainly because, it isn’t “for sure” on how my body will handle that part.
I didn’t write this post to try to make anyone sad, but I did want to give the information that yes: cancer is scary, I cry, it is emotionally draining and something you think about EVERY DAY, no matter how hard you try not to. It is an all consuming experience, but I choose not to make it become the defining concept of who I am, it is just a hurdle that I will have to jump over in the process of being who I want to be (and will hopefully only make me stronger).
Thank you so much everyone for your love, support, gifts, flowers, food, goodies and everything that you have done to cheer us up in this emotional and challenging time. Your efforts have not been overlooked for 5 minutes and every kind word and kind effort really does make an impact on us and our well being. Thank you, we love you.
I have a stage! I called and left a message today hoping that they had the results from my surgery. The phone call was good news!
My official breast cancer stage: Stage iiB (2B) with the details of T2 N1A M0
- T2 = tumor was 2 centimeters
- N1a = 1 lymph node with cancer, the tumor being larger than 2 mm in the lymph node (this part was updated, I found what N1A means here).
- M0 = No metastasis, no other tumors showing in my body
The official word is that the infiltrating ductal carcinoma tumor was a full 2 centimeters as expected, but the odd news was that they really didn’t have a measurement on the high grade in si tu – essentially they said it was everywhere in the left breast (which would have required a mastectomy even if I hadn’t opted for it in the first place). The only lymph node that came up positive was the one they had biopsied (it had a reasonable size tumor, but it has been removed)! The other 5 came up clean (even the “iffy” one). They showed “clear margins” from the surgery – which means they essentially show they got all of the breast cancer cells.
This means that they got the lymph node and all of the cancer out of my breast – so technically at this moment they pretty much have removed all of the cancer (no that does not get me out of chemo or radiation).
The right breast came up clean, but considering the extensiveness of the cancer cells that don’t show up on an ultrasound or MRI I don’t regret taking it out.
It is true, I am planning destructive mayhem for my “Incentive Spirometer” I am not sure if I should be attempting to light things on fire or create small combustible piles of destruction in my medicated state, but this thing is up for its own demise in the coming days when Mike is not looking. Imagine open wounds on your chest (ok “open wounds” is a big exaggeration here, but there are wounds), held down with a 5 lb weight and then being told to suck in really hard – yes, I believe they should be using this form of torture in war. I am not sure the UN would sanctionize it though… (this could also be partially to blame for my oxygen issues as I wasn’t taking deep enough breaths for my body to get the oxygen it needed – which is why it still needed work). I hate that thing, grrrrr.
On death row
I am in the process of cutting back pain killers as much as I can during the day time so that I am on IB Profin by Monday so that I can work (sadly the “good stuff”) isn’t really messing me up much anyway. The pain is fairly manageable now, and only really an issue at night. Mike had to drive me up to Huntsman this morning to get a refill because they only give you a 3 day dose after surgery – and they can’t call in narcotics to other pharmacies due to some recent law changes. I got all bundled up in a warm hat one of my step-sister’s friend made me, a scarf and my XXL sweatshirt and headed on over to get my medications (I looked beeeooootiful, no other words to describe it ). Mike and I also went to the grocery store so that I could get more smoothie supplies (smoothies are how I am trying to pack in extra fruits and nutrition into my healing diet), and some other necessities, and we went to Rite Aid to fill a few more prescriptions (I feel like a walking medicine cabinet).
So, for those that have not seen them, surgical drains don’t make a lot of sense. Mike had received help from the pharmacist at Rite Aid in locating a piece of velcro I could use around my waist (she wasn’t sure how I intended to use them for my drains). I went ahead and cleared them the best I could and had Mike take a picture on how these hang around my waist.
Please note pudgy belly, everyone has been feeding Mandi real good.
These are attached up on each side of my breasts draining the surgical area. Gross, yes, a pain in the butt, yes, absolutely necessary – they better be…! It isn’t just the drains themselves that are a bit dangerous, but all of that tubing! Getting up fast is not allowed, otherwise I pull on a tube and Mike has to get me to calm back down.
We have received lots of beautiful flowers, gifts and meals from friends, family and coworkers. We appreciate all of your love and support. A few people asked what types of “useful” items we will be needing in the coming months – I created an Amazon Wishlist where I have been listing some of the various items that have come up that will be useful to me in the coming year (I will keep adding to it also – some of it shows up in the right hand side of the website). Thanks for everyone’s love and support!
Mike in the waiting room while I was in surgery.
One thing that I learned early on is that there are a number of people that battle cancer alone. The hospital is willing to assign someone to go to your appointments with you and take notes, there are services that will drive you if you can’t get a ride etc. This blows me away, I am a very independent person, but I have to depend on others to get through this or I may just go insane. If you know someone who may be suffering this alone, please reach out and offer to help, no one should go through this on their own. Mike has reached a new level of “take charge” this last week and I am so grateful to have him (and my family) to help me.
Whether it was staying late at the hospital with me sitting in a recliner next to my bed and holding my hand to help me doze off, or make a list of items I am going to need when I get home and running all over town to pick them up and have them in place for when I got home, Mike did whatever he could think of this weekend to make me comfortable. Mike made a schedule the day I got home and scheduled what medications I needed to take and what time, along with tracking drain maintenance (an the amount of fluid drained) and he has handwritten chart of when I have to use the funny thing to check my lung strength (I can’t remember what it is called, but not using it and chest pain caused me O2 issues at the hospital).
Mike set alarms last night and woke me up each time I was due for a pain pill, he wanted to try to keep me ahead of the pain as nighttime was a real challenge for me at the hospital. I was in bed from about 8:30 PM to 10:00 AM – I slept pretty much the whole time. I woke up pretty rested and feeling good! Mike has been taking care of me with a smile on no matter how cranky or difficult I have been since surgery. The house is clean and I have been able to relax and drift off into a nap as often as I can. He has just been downright amazing.
Mike is also staying busy at coming up with ways to sneak food into me. Whether it has been making me homemade flan (can’t turn that down), homemade berry milkshakes, breakfast burritos or something delicious a friend has brought by – Mike has been keeping food in front of me 24/7. I am glad he is staying with me these first few days back at home as we are going through the paces of learning what I can and can’t do for myself at the moment.
Dereck and I are too legit to quit.
Overall I feel pretty good, I get a little nausea now and then and we have kept pain at bay by taking my medication on time (I have even been able to cut back a little bit during the daytime). The main inconvenience is that I am surrounded by drains. I have heard from several women that the drains are worse than the surgery (at the moment they kind of are). I have 5 of them, the shirt I bought to handle them holds 2 – needless to say I have an unusually large number). I read to make a velcro belt and attach them to that. Mike went and got me the velcro to make the belt, but I discovered that all of my button/zip up shirts and pajamas don’t fully cover the drains (too small tugs on them and they hang out below).
After a major wardrobe malfunction this morning (I didn’t have any comfortable tops to wear) I called my little brother who went on a hoodie hunt. The best success he had was the Target maternity section where he got me 3 tops that cover my drains and don’t tug on them (and they actually make me look semi-normal even though I have to get XL and XXL to cover everything up. We decided that with some gold chains and some beanies we were ready to start a rap band (now one of us needs to learn how to rap – but I think they have an XBox 360 game out for that…) Dereck has our first song all planned out.
I will have most of the drains for at least 2 weeks. I am pretty sure I will be well enough to work from home next week, but I will certainly do it from home where I can hide the ickies and be more comfortable. I am supposed to have a check up with one of the surgeons at the end of this week and the next one next week. I wasn’t given a date on when I will get the lymph node biopsy results (and stage number). Chemo is tentatively scheduled for February 25th for my first dose.
You can be jealous of my surgical hat, it is cool.
Surgery is over! You never really know what to expect when having a surgery like this one, as everyone seems to react to it fairly differently. I am not going to lie, it hurt. It hurt less than I expected though, so that was the good part.
Before surgery they draw all over you with a pen to mark the location of where your breasts sit on your body, where your collarbone is etc. Huntsman keeps a leaderboard for all surgeries going on so that family in the waiting room knows what stage you are in in your surgery based on the color of the box and where it is on the board. I am the big pink box on the bottom (I think Mike took this picture because of how long my surgery was compared to the others).
Surgery leaderboard, I won!!!
It also looks like they schedule everything to get out by 5 PM. When I eventually made it to my room post surgery I found my family and a beautiful bouquet of pink roses from my stepdad. They were really beautiful.
Pink roses from Steve.
If you have never been to the Huntsman, they actually have really nice guest rooms and surprisingly comfortable beds. Unfortunately someone is in checking on you about every 60 minutes, so sleep is pretty much a lost cause. Mike stayed until about 4:00 AM the first night, but I finally talked him into going home to get some sleep (seriously, they don’t let you sleep).
The second day some family members were able to come out and say hi. My nieces and nephew had great timing as they got some free ice cream from the kitchen when they brought my smoothie (morphine makes me nauseous, so I wasn’t really up for eating anything solid until they switched me to a different pain medication).
Hanging with my homies.
Flowers from Michelle.
A big, but super pleasant surprise, was that Michelle came to visit me at the hospital! Michelle is the friend that I mentioned in my last post, she has the same doctors and has been a great emotional support through this adventure. She brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I was so surprised and excited to see her! It really made my day. She told me I have the first step down, I definitely have a few more to go.
The surgeon removed six lymph nodes. One was bad, one was questionable, and four additional ones in the area. So, I didn’t have to give up too many lymph nodes. We should hopefully have the final staging information next week.
Flowers from Mike.
Flowers from work.
Before surgery we were discussing how strange it seems to take someone who was in relatively good health and make them sick in order to make them better. I know it will all be worth it in the end.
Surgery Mandi
I am writing this as I awaken from anesthesia… eee oooo eeee ooo. Ok, I wrote this before surgery so that Mike could post it for you when I am done with surgery. If this has been posted:
- My operation was a complete success
- I feel like total butt, because anesthesia sucks
- Hopefully they gave me some good pain killers
- Mike loves Mandi more than a fat kid loves cake
Mandi did excellent in her surgery according to her doctors. She is not in much pain which is a very good thing. This should make her recovery easier. We are now in her room waiting for them to drop her off to us. It’s been a long day, and we cant wait to see her. Craig, Barb, Steve, and Dereck have all been here keeping me company and I appreciate all of them very much. I will continue to keep everyone posted as I have more information. -Mike (The Hubby)
My "Rack Pack" from an amazing group of people.
Yesterday a very nice girl named Sarah came to my house, she has never met me before, but she heard from another woman that I have breast cancer. She brought me a care package that was truly amazing. It was a chemotherapy care package that literally included everything you could possibly think of – a blanket, fuzzy socks, mints, snacks, sudoku, thank you cards, a journal, earrings, a cute cancer awareness hat, and a bajillion other things (bajillion is a real number… I swear… good thing I wasn’t a math major). Sarah was from The Christi Anderson Rack Pack Foundation, the foundation was started by friends and family of Christi Anderson who lost her battle with breast cancer February 7, 2010. I offer my condolences to the friends and family of such an amazing woman. Sarah offered me a ride if I needed it, someone to talk to, anything I needed was just a phone call away. Wow, this made my eyes tear up, how amazing that someone I have never met before in my life was so willing to offer her help and support never having met me before. Their message made me giggle was “Check Your Boobies!” I can’t agree more!
Candace from the young survivor sisters had given the Rack Pack my name. I had signed up for this group as I wanted to have contact with other young people who had battled with this challenge before. Candace called me last week and spent an hour talking through some of my fears and concerns. She also sent me a big document about her experience and covered just about anything you would need to prepare for and how to prepare for it. Her timing couldn’t have been better. I am going to try to attend a dinner that the group is putting together at the end of February if I am feeling up to it (I hear I will!).
There is also Michelle, she reached out to me shortly after I started my blog and has been a great support. She has the same team at the Huntsman and has been a kind person to be my “pen pal” while I have sorted through this most surprising experience this past month. It is so nice to have the perspective of someone at the tail end of this process just as I begin it. Especially the perspective of a kind soul (she also was able to calm me down during a couple of moments of sheer panic).
My surgery time on Friday:
- I go in at 8:30 AM, which means I will probably actually be in surgery around 10:30 AM-ish
Mike will post surgical updates to http://www.facebook.com/darngoodlemonade as he gets them (they said that nurses will call him during surgery and give him updates). You don’t have to be on Facebook to check it, the page is public.
I called and got the PET/CT results, the showed cancer in my breast and lymph nodes (she said nodes plural, so I am going to assume they saw a couple more or so). I have a cyst or something in one of my vertebrae (makes me wonder if that is why I pull out my back super easily), and I have some brown fatty tissue – whatever that is – but it sounds gross.
Last but not least, my hair:
The hair that once was and is no more.
The hair that is.
P.S. I added mobile theme so that those trying to view my site, but couldn’t read it on an Android phone, you should be able to read it now.
P.P.S. I am getting a priesthood blessing from my father, brother, uncle, cousin and other family members tonight.
This also marks the beginning of my “radio silence” until I know I can/feel like typing. If I get to darn antsy I will dictate to Mike and have him update.
Updated:
My new t-shirt, it even came wrapped in lemon wrapping paper. 
I had my early morning meeting with the plastic surgeon that went pretty much how I expected, but not now I had secretly hoped for. I knew that radiation could throw a wrench in the easier breast reconstruction. In order to be able to keep my body from rejecting the implant and running into further complications with the stitches I have to have a more intensive surgery. Radiation does too much damage to the tissue – so they have to add something else to add blood flow to get it all to work correctly.
I will be having a Latissmus flap reconstruction similar to my Aunt Lalove’s reconstruction. The will take a muscle from my back and burrow it around into my breast (leaving the back of the muscle attached), and place it in front of where they put an implant. They will also borrow some skin from my back (and leave a straight line scar on my back along my bra strap line). The use the skin for the incision area as the radiated skin won’t stretch or heal properly. All of this is used to keep the blood flow to the front of the breast (which is important to keep your nipple healthy and happy). Essentially, the easier happier recovery from reconstruction is toast, and my likelihood of symmetry is also less. This is pretty much my only option is I don’t have much tissue lying around to make new boobies, and I need tissue to get it to work properly. I was pretty bummed to hear the news, but I knew from my aunt’s experience that this would be the case once radiation was added to the mix.
This was on the door to the room that they injected me with radioactive tracers.
It is commonly known that radioactive materials are well associated with the development of super powers and heroes. They can now make comic books about me, injected with radioactive dye and BAM super powers. Not sure if I get flight or the xray eyes, but I will be sure to let you know when they develop!
I was able to get in to my PET/CT scan a little earlier in the day than I was originally scheduled because an appointment was canceled. This process involves being taken to a room where they inject you with radioactive sugar. A good explanation of how the PET/CT scan works lists that how it shows tumors is that:
Metabolically active organs or tumors consume sugar at high rates, and as the tagged sugar starts to decay, it emits positrons. These positrons then collide with electrons, giving off gamma rays, and a computer converts the gamma rays into images. These images indicate metabolic “hot spots,” often indicating rapidly growing tumors (because cancerous cells generally consume more sugar/energy than other organs or tumors).
This makes spots that the doctors can see to locate metastatic tumors. I kind of want to see the pictures when they have them available. They look kind of cool. After the injection I had to sit quietly in a room for 70 minutes and drink two huge “fruit smoothie” barium sulfate beverages. The placed me in the CT scan and I had to lay completely still for over 25 minutes. All of the not eating and fancy smoothies has left me sitting home feeling a little funky.
I believe they will call or set up an appointment to discuss the results. In the meantime, I am seriously waiting for my super powers so I can know what color of cape I need to buy (maybe Laura will sew it for me).
Speaking of Laura, my happy for the week is that Laura finished the quilt she made out of my wedding dress! She came in Monday with a beautifully wrapped package, I was super excited to see how beautiful it came out. She is one super talented seamstress!
The wrapped package.
The quilt made out of my wedding dress!
What the wedding dress used to look like.
Mel and I getting pedicures.
I called the weekend before my surgery the final “hurrah” before I started the “kick breast cancer in the butt” process that begins with surgery the following Friday the 28th. Friday evening Mel and I went to go get a pedicure (which I heard is a bit of a no-no when you are in chemo, so I had to get that one out of the way! Mel was sweet enough to treat me to a relaxing evening getting leg massages and colored toes. I swore I wouldn’t do pink, but none of the colors were really popping out at me so I decided to go PINK. After that Mike made a huge pot of spaghetti for all of the friends and family at the house before we headed out to a bar named “The Woodshed.” Where we had a few beverages (maybe just a few too many ).
I wasn't going to go pink, but I ended up going PINK.
Saturday Mike and I slept in pretty late as lately we actually haven’t really been able to sleep or sleep in. Once we got up Mike asked me what I wanted to eat and I decided that I wanted “the works” french toast, bacon, sausage and hash browns. Mike was happy to oblige, my mom and Steve got there just in time to join in on the big brunch. I spent the afternoon reading and relaxing when I discovered that Little Big Planet 2 had come out (we had been waiting for this game to come out for a long time and sort of missed watching for the date with everything going on).
Me, Kim and Scott hanging out at The Woodshed.
Mike and I went and bought the game and did some quick grocery shopping because I was craving chicken noodle soup (one of my comfort foods). I made a huge pot of soup that we shared with mom and Steve. The leftovers went into single serve size bowls that I froze so that I have some easy home cooked food to grab if I wanted it after the surgery. We spent the rest of the evening playing Little Big Planet 2 (it is one of those games that makes you giggle a lot because of all of the silly stuff they put in it).
Sunday my good friend Julie came to hang out with me during the afternoon. She is my good errand buddy as she doesn’t mind running errands with me and keeps me up to date on girl chat. Brian, Michelle and baby Morgan made us dinner tonight so we were able to relax at their house and watch a movie. We came home to a completely tiled bathroom (and the cleanest I have seen our house in a few weeks)! Yay, just grout, seal, caulk and putting in the rest of the stuff. The worst part is over!
Bathroom is all tiled (including the floor which has a box on it).
Joan scheduled a special appointment for me Thursday afternoon to go ahead and cut my hair short. I have had super short hair in the past – so this won’t be a completely new experience for me. I wanted to see if I could give the hair to Locks of Love, but my use of bleach on my hair in the past makes it unusable (good FYI for those that are ever interested in donating their hair).
The "you have cancer" book.
Mike went to stores all over the valley to find a Kindle for me (it has been on my wish list for a long time). After driving to 3 different Targets (Best Buy was all sold out), he was able to grab the last on that one of them had in stock. I bought a messenger bag that will fit my laptop, Kindle, “you have cancer” book (that is what I nicknamed the handy 3 ring binder that the Huntsman uses to put educational information, lab reports etc. in so that you have all of your information in one place). A change of clothes, snacks and other random things I will discover to be handy to keep around during hospital visits.
Next Appointments on Tuesday the 25th:
- Appointment with plastic surgeon to determine my reconstruction options/plan for surgery on Friday
- PET/CT scan Tuesday afternoon (I don’t get to eat all day before this one, boo)
