Surgery Tomorrow and Other News of Today

I was actually quite busy today. I went into my office to pick up some files - I needed to contact some people about various things I said I would do this summer and either notify them I would be late or I would just not do them. But with over 3,000 emails in my inbox and not remembering when or who I was in contact with, I needed my hard copy sheets so I could follow up with them.

I also made a few phone calls about things like summer salary, disability, FMLA, insurance, etc. I need to figure out what my options are, how much to save, etc. I have a post about that, so I won't go into it here.

I also had to have my blood drawn and go see the wound care nurse. I forgot to mention that there are two smaller areas where the skin is almost all the way grown over near the bottom. In other words, almost all healed. The other larger area, up under the pit, is now about 6x3.5cm (she thought it was 5x4cm last week, but it's in an area that's hard to measure; seven days ago, it was 8x6cm. So, it's growing in nicely. It's not draining as much so less dressings. Maybe another 2-3 weeks.

I went with dad to pick Ed up from school and we ran an errand before we came home.

My colleague, M, and her husband and daughter stopped by and brought dinner and visited. It was a good visit. Thanks, M, for dinner!

I didn't take a steroid today. I took one yesterday and felt like my heart was racy and I was shaky all day. Yuck! I hardly have any numbness in my fingers, so I figure that's a good sign that there isn't much swelling. No head or nausea, either. I'll let the surgeon know that I didn't take steroids . . . I don't think it will make much of a difference. I hope that I won't have to take it afterwards, but if I do, maybe I can talk them into a smaller dose.

It seems a bit surreal to me that I head to surgery in less than 12 hours. I mean, they're opening up my head. I have reminded myself that the surgeon has already done this to me once and I was okay. This surgery is less risky and will only be 2 hours rather than 3. So, I should be okay. The radiation oncologist was surprised that I was having another surgery - this whole idea about standard of care in situations of 2 or more tumors in the brain usually means that there are cancer cells running around all over in there, so the treatment is radiation. If there is just one tumor, then surgery and radiation. When I told her that the surgeon said that I was now in the latter category and wanted to do the surgery, she said that that wasn't maybe technically correct and then she asked if my own oncologist knew what I had decided. I told her he was on vacation and didn't know. I think she's a little surprised that I would just make a decision without consulting and talking to a few docs - I might've passed the idea by Dr. K but I knew he was on vacation. So, I made the best decision I could at the time. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we can get the thing out, the better. Then I can get to healing elsewhere instead of waiting to see if radiation worked.