Healing Progress and Unexpected News

Today I was feeling just a little bit better. It seems to feel a little better each day. 

First day I couldn't do anything, literally. Didn't even have enough energy to talk much. Second day, I could maybe raise my arm up enough to scratch my stomach but they were encouraging me to get up and walk, so I attempted and it was very difficult, but I did it. That same day I was supposed to do a breathing treatment, which again was very difficult. I could only take short breaths because when my lungs fill up, my chest feels like it's going to explode. About by the third day I was able to walk better and get bigger and better breaths in and out. 

Sunday, I was feeling the best I had so far, so I decided to try to get ready to go to sacrament meeting. I tried and tried to reach my hair and it was impossible, so Tanner attempted to tease it for me. It was quite the experience. I wish I could have taken a picture of it. It was so funny yet so sweet at the same time. I definitely took a mental photo. I was able to get enough makeup on to look decent and found a baggy shirt that would tuck into my skirt to disguise the tubes lines that hang at my stomach. It didn't disguise much, but at least I was able to make it there. I got to listen to Tanner's sweet testimony, which was very touching and I'm glad I was there to hear it. Yesterday was a good day. Hearing everyone's testimony's was the spiritual uplift I needed.

Today I woke up feeling tired but as soon as I took my pain pills, I felt much better. We had an appointment with my surgeon to check on one of my incisions because it looked like it may be infected, but we weren't sure. We met with her and before she looked at it she wanted to go over the pathology results with  us. She said there were some findings that they didn't expect. Sigh! There were a lot more masses in the same breast than anticipated and some that didn't even show up on the scans that we did. There was an area near the surface of the skin that concerned her during surgery but not any evidence to cut the skin out, so she clipped it (put in a tiny metal ball to mark the spot so she can find it later), and then depending on the results of the pathology would determine if it's an issue or not. They were able to save most of my skin, so the surgery went well, but the results she got back said that the area with concern was fine. My doctor didn't believe it, so she had another doctor do the pathology results and they said yes there is a bit of skin that was involved and needs to be removed. After all this information, I'm telling myself, what does this all mean? She then explained that we are going to have to go back into surgery tomorrow and remove some skin and the plastic surgeon may have to remove the expander altogether since it may not fit since we're losing some outer skin, but that will be determined during surgery tomorrow. 

Immediately after the doctor told me all this information, I turned pale, started sweating and got nauseous. I wanted to cry, but didn't have enough energy. I felt like I had already past that mountain that I needed to climb, but now I have to climb it again. Tanner of course has a way of getting me to relax and feel better and I love him for that. The doctor gave us a few minutes for me to lie down and relax and after several minutes of talking and resting on the bed, I felt much better. We came to the conclusion that this is a blessing in disguise. If my doctor wouldn't have caught that little area as a concern, and then just went with the first pathology results she got, we would have left it as is, and then in several years maybe there could be a recurrence. I really feel like my doctor was prompted to get another doctor to do pathology results again. There's just another little blessing that disguises itself and if I don't search hard enough, I won't even notice it. I am learning to look at everything in a positive way and cast out all the negative thinking. It is very empowering to have the ability to do this, and I hope to be able to get better and better at this because I know I will have a lot more trials in my life and learning these at a young age will help me handle my future trials better.

So tomorrow is surgery. I check in at 1:30 and surgery is scheduled at 3:30 for 3 hours and then 1 hour in recovery. I will be admitted for one night and should come home the next morning or afternoon. My surgeon said that this surgery isn't nearly as huge as the mastectomy I just had. I may not even notice a difference pain wise after surgery since I'm already in pain now so that's a good thing. I have recognized day by day that my pain and suffering isn't even a smidgen close to what the Savior did and suffered for me, so it makes it that much easier to go through the suffering knowing that I will come out of it a stronger person and with stronger relationships with my family and my Savior Jesus Christ.