Recovering

I just got a call from my health insurance company.  The representative said to me, "Congratulations!  We just received notice from your OB that you are pregnant and we would like to get you enrolled in our Healthy Pregnancy Program."  I thanked them and then declined the offer to be a member of the Healthy Pregnancy Program.  I don't need any more doctors or nurses following this pregnancy.

I've been telling myself I need to update the blog for several days but just don't have the motivation.  I am way too busy laying in bed dozing in and out of sleep or sitting on the couch and staring at the wall...Seriously.  The last week has been a blur.  I was taking pain medication every four hours as prescribed until Monday when I had my appointment with the plastic surgeon to check my incision and the drain.  He told me I should discontinue the pain medication.  And then I had an appointment with the general surgeon and she said I need the pain medication and to continue taking it.  So I decided that I would be the judge of whether or not I need it.  So I stopped taking it to determine if it is actually necessary.  It turns out that I don't need any medication to sleep at night or to function normally throughout the day.  I do need it before I go on a car ride.  I went to the store with my mom yesterday and after about two minutes in the car, I knew I'd made a poor decision to go with her.  Every turn, bump, jostle or movement of the car left me with a throbbing chest and completely drained of all energy by the time we arrived at our destination (which was only about a 7 minute car ride).  So for any car rides in my near future, I will be preparing myself with a small does of pain killers.

The pathology report came back.  There is cancer in the two of the three lymph nodes that were removed.  The oncologist says he expected for there to be microscopic amounts of cancer in the lymph nodes and it doesn't change anything.  They can't officially stage the cancer until after I've delivered the baby because it requires PET scans and all kinds of other stuff that they can't do while I'm pregnant.  He (Dr. Kass, my oncologist) is treating it as stage 2 breast cancer.  Officially it could be somewhere between stage 2 and stage 3 but he said it doesn't really change the treatment during pregnancy either way.

Cancer is stupid.  But breast cancer is something I don't really feel like I can complain about.  I have cancer.  It was in my breast.  Now my breast is gone.  My breast can be replaced.