Yesterday I visited my surgical oncologist and had my drainage tube removed, so I am no longer being assimilated into the Borg hive, ha ha. It felt so good to lie down without that thing being under me. According to the Dr., I will need both chemotherapy and radiation. The rationale behind chemo is that 1) I am young, and 2) there is no guarantee that cancer cells haven't spread farther than the surgery went. If cancer made it to one lymph node, it could have gone farther, and 3) we want to make the best effort to get it all now so we don't have nasty surprises later.

So I have an appointment with the radiation guy on Sept. 19, and one with the chemo guy on Sept. 24. And in between, I wait and plot about who is going to cut my hair.

The sur. onc. was encouraging about how my incision looks and how well I can move my arm around, so my exercising is paying off, I'd say.

I am enjoying reading lots of books and going on walks with friends and not feeling nauseous. I must go eat now, says the clock.

If I get a choice, I will choose the lose-my-hair chemo drugs over the feel-nauseated-all-the-time chemo drugs. And I will chop off my hair and donate it to Locks for Love and then get a Mohawk and take a picture. Then when I'm bald I'll buy a red-head curly wig and a long platinum-blonde wig and some funky hats to wear.

I'm out of surgery now and have spent the night here at the hospital. My left side and arm feel like someone has been kicking me very hard. My whole chest is wrapped in a giant Ace bandage, and there is a plastic tube coming out my left side, ending in a bulb-like bottle pinned to the front, which has red liquid in it. I'm told that this is my "JP Drain" and I get to keep it for two weeks. I'd rather have another arm.

My legs are encased in strange bandagey things which inflate every 30 seconds or so and then deflate again, rather like giant blood pressure cuffs. This is to keep my circulation circulating so I don't form blood clots. My only problem with them is that in order to use the toilet or walk anywhere, I have to be completely unhooked and then rehooked, and they look really funky when I walk, and then they fall down. Their insides are velcro the whole way, which is good for holding them in place but a pain for the nurse to undo them or redo them after my walking shakes them down to my ankles. Of course, with the IV running into my right arm and the breathing tube I had when I just arrived out of the recovery room, this makes four tubes sticking out of various places.

Dr. C came to talk to me this morning and said that the lymph node they checked during surgery did have cancer cells in it, so they took it out, along with other lymph nodes. He also said we should have the pathology report before next Tuesday -- hopefully by Friday.

This explains something that happened yesterday. After I was prepped for surgery and had visited the "Nuclear Medicine" boys to be injected with the radioactive isotope, and had waited the requisite hour for it to travel wherever it was supposed to travel, I was taken to a "holding" room right by the operating rooms. The anesthesiologist came to visit, and as I was waiting for Dr. C, I was struck by a realization. It felt like a light had just gone off in my head and it felt like someone said, "You're going to have chemotherapy." Sounds corny, I know, but it was such a strong feeling -- I was quite positive it was speaking truth. So when, after surgery, Steve told me that Dr. C told him I'd have to have chemo, I wasn't surprised.

Although, some part of me persists in whispering that this is all not real.