Good news and bad news......

To fear is one thing.  To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.  ~Katherine Paterson

The good news is that the surgeon removed the drains today.  As you can see in the above photo, they were a huge nuisance.....and you can't even see the 2-3 feet of tubing that went with each one of the "bulbs".....because I had to crop the photo to get rid of my fat stomach.....LOL!  So that's another story altogether.  I never really noticed how fat and flabby my stomach was because there were always boobs there -- sticking out (I mean drooping) somewhere between my eyes and my stomach.  So it wasn't so noticeable.  HOWEVER, there are no longer any boobs there to take the emphasis away from the stomach!  Eeeeh gads!  The stomach has GOT to go!  (with diet and exercise......not excision/amputation!)  Okay.....that was a lot of mumble jumble about nothing.  Back to the drain removal.  It feels SO good to be rid of them, although the actual removal did not feel SO good at all.  You see, there was actually about 5 inches of tubing (with each tube) under the skin, up inside, to whatever areas needed to be drained.  All I can say is that I'm glad I took a pain pill before I went to the appointment this morning.  I told Dr. Imami that I took one an hour before the visit because I wasn't sure what he had up his sleeve to do to me today....LOL!  It helped, but it was still pretty uncomfortable when they pulled those things out.  BUT.....they're GONE!  And I feel so much better!  And I can take a shower tomorrow!  And I can't wait! 

And now for the bad news.  Kenny and I were hoping and praying all the way to the appointment this morning (actually, ever since the surgery) that the pathology report would be better than the last one; i.e., we were hoping that the staging would change from a stage IIIA to a IIA.  And we were dreaming that it would change to a stage I or that maybe they would even say, "Guess what?!  Good news!  There actually wasn't any cancer at all.  It was all a mistake."  I could live without my boobs just fine and the knowledge that there wasn't ever any cancer.  It was fun to dream about, but it didn't happen.  The staging actually changed to a stage IIIC (which is the last stage before stage IV.....which is the last stage).  The reason the stage changed is because there were a lot more lymph nodes involved than they originally thought, which they didn't know until they actually removed them.  It turns out that 24 of 25 lymph nodes had cancer.  Bummer.  BUT.....I am NOT going to let that get me down.  I keep telling myself that it could be worse -- it could be stage IV(it's not), it could have been in the other breast (it wasn't), it could have been elsewhere in the body besides the lymph nodes (it wasn't) -- and it IS what it IS, and I am going to deal with it.......kick it in the ass......beat it......and get on with my life! 

On that note, I will sign off for now.  Hang in there, everybody.  Things WILL get better!!   Just keep thinking all those positive thoughts!