January 7, 2016

Hi all,

Thanks for riding this roller coaster with me so far.

There is a plan in place.

On Wednesday, 1/13 I will (hopefully) have a mastectomy of my left breast, sentinel lymph node removal, and reconstructive surgery. I will be at OHSU for 3-4 days. My recovery will be 4-6 weeks.

The reason for the hopefully part is that the first part of the surgery will be to remove the sentinel lymph node from my arm pit and test it. If it is positive for cancer then they will still do the mastectomy but I will not be able to have the reconstruction at that time. The surgery will be shorter with an easier recovery but will add 6 or so months to this process that will definitely include chemo and radiation.

For those of you that are local and like Penny, I'm asking for help taking care of her mid day the days I'm in the hospital and the weeks after I'm home. The hospital days and first week will be the hardest since I will be "hunched over" and on pain pills the whole time.

Christopher can walk her in the am and pm but she typically needs some sort of mid day exercise between 11-2. Are you willing to come visit? Take her for part of the day? If you want to walk her I ask that you keep her on the leash unless you're at a fenced dog park. She is still working on recall and can be very unpredictable. She loves all other dogs. Booby [I meant to write "Bobby" but isn't is great that I wrote "Booby"?] will have her the evening before and the day of surgery.

Here is a spreadsheet:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Jv6fAg8gaiJI5oVGkN-ePzUcQxalJRN_WzPiFesDXq8/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the meal baby link again as well:http://mealbaby.com/viewregistry/20753200

I love you guys. Having a plan is good.