Not the news I wanted to hear

Yesterday and today consisted of seeing 3 doctors in regards to my surgery on Nov. 1st. Yesterday was a followup appt. with my primary dr. to go over medications. I've been wanting to get weaned off of the oxy narcotic drug so he has prepared a plan to do so over the next couple of weeks. It had been my goal to go back to work this Monday in a part time position. He thought that was not wise to do so at this time, considering it would involve driving and taking the narcotic drug simultaneously. Plus with the reduced dosages of the pain meds we don't know how well that would be. I continue to have pain on a scale from 1-10, the pain would be a 5. Much better than weeks ago. I will be seeing him in 2 weeks as another followup.

This morning consisted of seeing the surgeon and plastic surgeon in Pittsburgh who did the surgery in Nov. Lisa drove me as there was no way I could or would drive that distance by myself. After having a chest x-ray (which was good/no issues) I went to the surgeon's appt. Once again, a long wait of about 2 hrs. Basically looked over the areas involved, told me to make sure to get medical oncologist, went over some aches and pains with him. Reminded me not to do any pushing/pulling. Definitely no vacuuming or shoveling of snow (which I admitted I had done a few minutes this week.) Bad things to do. Told me to stretch and rotate my arms. Even showed me the plate that was placed in my breast area. Takes over a good portion of my chest. Larger area than I had expected it to me.

From there we went to plastic surgeon. Got there within 5 minutes of appt. Not bad since you never know how long appts. are going to be. I got right into examining room where the dr. examined how the areas were healing. His eyes immediately went to my chest area where the "flap" was sewn into. There is a small area that has never healed like the other parts of that incision. At one time a scab came off, and then another scab grew back. Had caught Barry's and my eyes because it was dark like the previous cancer had looked like. Blackish. And to top it off, it's located basically in the exact area where the cancer was taken in Nov. If you look at my recent pix of the incision, you may be able to see the dark area at the top of what I call my "necklace" incision. Right to the point, the dr. is thinking that the cancer has returned. Just in how it's healing and it's appearance. He can't say why it didn't catch the other dr.s eyes yesterday or today, except perhaps for his age! Without any wasting of time, he is going to operate on me this coming Monday as an out patient at 9 a.m. He feels there is a lot of elasticity in the area of the skin in question, making it easy to remove a good size of the area. It was not the news I had wanted to hear but honestly I'm not surprised. After having cancer twice, I would never go out and even say I was cancer free. But I am glad that he is taking notice of the area and that we are going right after it especially if it proves to be cancer. No time to waste.

A long day but when you have a friend to talk to, it does go faster. Thanks Lisa for being there through both of these appts.