A day not soon forgotten

6:00am - go up got ready to go to the hospital

7:00am - left for Goshen

8:00am - arrived at the hospital and went to day surgery

8:15am - undressed, gowned and being prepped for surgery

8:45am - Family friend from ROCC came up to pray with us

9:15am - nuclear medicine injected into both left and right breast to light up suspicious lymph nodes.

9:30am - wheeled down for surgery

9:34am - anesthetic administered

9:56 am - surgery started

3:00 pm - surgery complete and taken to recovery

4:00pm -wheeled to my room for the 24 hours.

The ride to the hospital was long and pretty quite. Once we arrived to the hospital the questions began to roll in... name, birth date, allergies, do you have to use the restroom, I was waiting on which door are you parked closest to so you can run out of here the fastest? Once they were able to get my IV started things began to move pretty rapidly. I think I saw every second on the clock tick by as people trickled in doing their thing. Shortly after our friend from our church in goshen came up and prayed with us two nurses came and one at a time injected a dose of nuclear medicine under each areola first the left and then the right and massaged each. The pain was extremely intense. About 15 minutes after that I kissed Nate goodbye and cried as they rolled me down the long hallway. The operating room was intense. I've seen them on TV but never actually been in one. They wheeled me in asked me to transfer beds, the anesthesiologist injected some medicine I looked at the clock and that's the last thing I remember. The next thing I knew I was semi awake, and surrounded by nurses who were asking me more questions. The first thing I remembered was I forgot to add my Grandpa to the list of people Nate was suppose to call. One of the nurses (a lady who knew us from our Goshen church) was there throughout the whole process updating Nate and my family and I asked her if she could please tell Nate to call my Grandpa, she said he was already in the waiting room, and that my best friend Carrie was there, as long as she could be, but had to leave to catch a flight. Ironically later I found out that the Dr.'s assistant had missed the surgery because she had just found out her best friend had breast cancer, and had jumped in her car to go be with her as she begins her battle. After a couple short conversations with the recovery nurses I was taken to my room which I don't remember and had several visitors as I was in and out of consciousness. The night was long, filled with nausea and vomiting, pain and trying to get comfortable. My roommate with up crying or snoring all night and I just couldn't handle listening to her so I had the TV on all night. I was up about every hour going to the bathroom. The nurses were helpful even as busy as they seemed.

The ride home yesterday was long and painful, but the journey ahead is going to be longer. Before leaving the hospital I was scheduled 6 or 7 appts. for the next 2 weeks. I'm still overwhelmed with emotions of not knowing exactly how bad this is, and also with all the love and support of everyone around us. My family is being taken care of and I'm so grateful for that, but I'm still in a fog and of course a lot of pain.