Just popping in to update you all. I’m sorry I’m unable to reply to messages/emails/comments etc right now, I’m just not up to it.

I had surgery on Wednesday. It was meant to be day surgery only, but the ended up keeping me in overnight. I’m in more pain again of course, which is starting to make me angry because I’m sick of this pain/over sensitivity/itchiness/limited movement. The only reason they kept me overnight was because they left a drain in – nothing serious. To look at my breast makes me sad. It is hideously scarred, and there is a substantial bit missing. Now, apparently, the cavity where the tumour was taken out, and the cavity in the armpit from having the lymph nodes take out, are one huge cavity. Not that you can see it or feel it like that. But that’s a substantial part gone.

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Just popping in for a quick update. I’m not able to spend a lot of time on the computer at my parents’ and it hurts too much anyway, at this stage.

Yes, I’m still staying at my parents’ house. I thought I would be home next week but it is not to be. I saw my surgeon this afternoon for my post-op visit and it wasn’t good news. Apparently the tumour was 3.5 cm not 2.5 cm, and he took out a good lot around it, but there wasn’t enough of a clear margin at the back of it, only 1.5mm, and he took it down nearly to the chest wall. So now, I have to go back into hospital next week to have more taken out. This time he will go down to the muscle in the chest wall and take the membrane off that. Depending on the results of that, I may have to go back a third time for a mastectomy, but at this stage he is still trying to save my breast.

In addition to the tumour, they also found cancer ’in situ’ in the surrounding milk ducts, where the majority of tumours start. And the cancer in one of the lymph nodes they took out. The tumour tested weakly positive for being receptive (ie fed) by oestrogen and progesteron (sp), but not enough to warrant hormone treatment. And I still don’t know whether it is HER2+. Whatever that means.

So … surgery next week. The week after that I have an appointment with a medical oncologist for chemotherapy, and a couple of weeks after that I go down to a city south of here for a visit with my radiation oncologist.

I’m still in a lot of pain. Not from my breast scar (which is a good 4 inches long) but the surgery under my arm/armpit (where I have a good 5 inch scar). I thankfully no longer have the feeling of a have a cattle prod constantly being shot in my armpit. But my upper arm and side on the right side feel very very weird. Numb, yet very sensitive and painful. Like I have been grazed the entire way.

I have been having some surreal dreams, which are very telling. All about being lost and alone and unable to reach out for help or any way to help myself, about being in the land of the dying and very very ill. Even during the last dream I thought “this would make a fantastic surrealist painting”. There’s also been a slight psychic element to an occasional dream … communicating through dream.

I spent last night at ’Nanna Kay’s’ (Liam’s grandmother on his father’s side). It’s good we still have a good relationship, because I was able to sleep there the night. Liam kept saying, all night and this morning before school “isn’t this fantastic (wonderful/fun/great) that we are together?” And it was the best feeling in the world. Especially having him crawl into my bed when he woke up this morning. It’s a shame my parents don’t have the space (or patience) to have him stay here with me. I will sleep there again tomorrow night and have dinner with them and my ex. Then next week is school holidays and Kay is taking Liam down for a week’s trip to Sydney which he will love … trains, ferries, etc. I’m having surgery anyway so it ends up being easier.

It’s needless to say I’m very very frightened now. That’s a given. And I’m particularly frightened for my son. THAT is where the fear and sorrow come in. For his sake.