cancer free

Its been a little more than a week since surgery. The nausea is finally gone, which is wonderful. I'd rather be attacked repeatedly by killer bees than be nauseated. For a week I was wrapped up in bandages like a mummy. Those came off on Wednesday, which was freeing. It was like being freed from a corset, tied too tight, day and night.

I still have two drains hanging off each side of my chest, draining healing fluids my body creates trying to fix the giant cavities created during surgery. I'll have the drains for a couple more weeks. They're a nuisance, but manageable.

Would you believe that silly tumor grew a whole centimeter in the month between diagnosis and surgery? It went from 2.4 centimeters at my initial diagnosis, to 3.5 centimeters at surgery ... a whole centimeter in one month! But the mastectomy took care of it. They also found trace amounts of cancer in one lymph node, but not enough to make anyone concerned that it went any further.

Bottom line: I am cancer free! That's the point of this whole thing, right? Get rid of cancer, and live. Live for a long, long time. And toward that end, so far we are succeeding. Aggressive as it may have been, its gone now. Nice try Cancer, but I win this round. I'm a little deformed, and rather sore, and recovery will take a while, but all of it is worth it, because I still win.