Home, Sweet Home!

It's a great day and it's a FRIDAY!!

Home, Sweet Home!

I've been doing so well after surgery, that I was discharged from the hospital yesterday!  Im home now!! There is NOTHING like sleeping in your own bed!  I'd be lying if I told you that Im not in pain.  Im sure you can imagine, so I won't go into the details here.

Re-cap of the events

On Wednesday morning, Nate and I woke up around 6am.  My Mom and her best friend were also staying in the same hotel as us, and they met up with us in our room.  We were all off to the hospital together!  I checked-in at the front admissions and before I knew it, I was in a hospital robe and in a hospital bed.

Since UCSF does a lot of teaching, at any given time there were 10 people in white coats in my room.  A combination of Doctors and Residents.   I remember getting my blood pressure taken 3 times... once by the Doctor and two times by Residents.  I remember them listening to my heart multiple times too.  You get the idea.  They were learning from me and my cancer - pretty cool.  I was hooked up to an IV and started on just a clear fluid.  More Doctors and students came in to ask questions, etc.  About 8:45, Dr. O'Donnell came in.  He wanted to go over the procedure with me and how long he thought it would take.  He then initialed my right leg next to the tumor.  He wanted to make sure that when they were setting me up for surgery, that they set-up the correct leg.

Here I am hooked up to the IV's waiting to go into surgery...

A couple minutes after 9am, they gave me a shot of something into my IV.  The Anesthesiologist told me that it is similar to Xanex, but 100 times more powerful.  before I knew it they were wheeling me into the OR.  THAT was freaky!!! and I was so glad that they had given me whatever that was in my IV because I was so relaxed.  The last thing I remember was them telling me to breathe into a plastic 'mask' that covered my nose and mouth.  Lights Out.

From what I've been told it took 2 hours to get the tumor out.  Then Dr. O'Donnell came to the waiting room to report the status to my family as the Doctors were setting up to radiate my leg.  Since I wasn't there to hear it, I have compiled two messages that were sent out to family and friends.  One message was from my Mom and the other from my Husband.  I think its hilarious how they both heard the update from Dr. O'Donnell at the same time but the messages were so different.

From my Mom:

Just spoke with surgeon who is done with basic operation. Jen still in surgery getting area radiated. Surgery went well and surgeon thought cancer was contained in its own sack (yay!) and he was able to ...move nerve safely so he thinks no damage to nerve via surgery. Tumor will go to pathology to see if there was any breach of that self contained sack. If so, more radiation after she returns home. We are waiting for radiation to be completed and for her to move to recovery area.  Because it looked self contained, he didn't take any muscle. So no 'shark bite' appearance. We think. Will keep you posted. Thanks for prayers

From my Husband:

"It went well we are waiting to see her. We won't know about the biopsy for 10 days. But the surgery went great! We are hoping she can go home tomorrow."

In all, the surgery took close to 5 hours, including Radiation too.

I remember 'coming to' in an open area... all I could talk about was my husband and how great he is!  I laughed when I was told that!

I don't remember how I got into my recovery room but, when I did wake up again I remember everyone was in the room!  However, there was another bed in the room.  They were waiting for another patient to come out of surgery.  I continued to be very nice to the nurses and before I knew it Nurse Karen told me that because they enjoy my personality and my attitude so much that they would move me into my own private room!!!!!

Here is my incision that is covered with gauze, you can see O'Donnell's initials.  The incision looks big, because it is!!  The tumor was located deep within my thigh muscles and down past my knee.  Part of the reason for my current pain, is because the muscles needed to be pulled and moved around to get the tumor out!  The red tube you see coming out of my incision is my drainage tube and it has since been removed.

Here is me getting wheeled out to our car... on our way home!!  I know I look pretty pale, Over the last two days I keep getting pale and nauseated and then Im fine.  Its odd!  However, you can't deny that SMILE!

I can now officially say that I kicked CANCER'S ASS!