She's Home..

And trying to get some rest.

She's walking a little slow and the only comfortable position right now is flat on her back so there won't be much communication from Amy on the blog or via email until next week.

The follow up is scheduled for Monday, hopefully the tube will be removed (I have no idea what the tube is for and forgot to ask) and she will be a little more mobile.

Bryan is taking Gemma and Josh down to Florida for a week on Tuesday so Amy can get some serious quiet / recovery time.

It's been a tough 9 months. But the scary part is over - let's celebrate the cancer free years to come!

Just heard from Amy

She's on track for heading home this afternoon - easier to get some rest in a quiet house than a noisy hospital. She did, however, decide to stick around for lunch since hospital food is so tasty...

Amy sounded good although disappointed at the return of her lymphodema - hopefully this is due to having fluids pumped into her during surgery and she'll be able to process it out like before.

I'm guessing that there will be a lot of napping over the next couple days and I don't know when she'll feel like getting back to the blog but feel free to continue leaving comments - she'll enjoy reading them when she gets here and I know that she really appreciates all the support and love coming her way!

Sister #1

Update

As noted in Amy's post below, Sister #1 here to relay the update from Bryan.

All is well! The surgeries were completed with no troubles and Amy will be up in her room resting within the hour.

Things got started on time and they finished up in about 4 hours - no complications or unexpected blips so Amy should be home on Friday afternoon.

btw, Dr. Mayfield is a rockstar.

Game Day!

As I write, it's about 9:40 at night. I have to get up tomorrow at 5:00 AM. The "show" time is 6:30 and the surgery is at 7:30.

I'll have to ask Mayfield about this when I see him tomorrow. I distinctly remember his saying that he turns into a "rock star" by 9:30 AM. . .

Judging from some e-mails, there's some unclarity regarding tomorrow's procedure. This is my fault. I'd alluded before to the idea of doing a reconstruction in the same surgery as the removal. We looked into this. And it's definitely not what's going to happen tomorrow.

In fact, right now, we have no intention to pursue reconstruction. That's a post all in itself, though. Maybe one I'll get around during my recovery.

Speaking of which, I'm told I'll likely be allowed home by Friday afternoon. The kids are with Miss Betsy and her family all weekend, so it should be a very peaceful few days.

Bryan will call Sister #1 with an update after he hears from Mayfield post-surgery, and Sister #1 will post said update on this blog when she gets it. This should be up by early afternoon. If it's not, start praying with wild enthusiasm.

Before my first surgery, I remember having to take an ambien just to fall asleep, and it only worked for a few hours. I really feel like I can go drug-free tonight, so it must be better this time around, no?

Well.

Those alive in the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit. All flesh will pass away one day anyway. . .

Thank you for your prayers.

That Guy Again

On today's pre-op appointment with Mayfield:

How long are these things, usually? 20 minutes? 30 minutes? We were there for an hour and a half with Mayfield, chatting about all manner of things. Many of them medical, of course. But some of them completely irrelevant to the coming surgery.

Like his dogs. Turns out he has always been an akita man. I told him my akita story, you know, the one where my brother's dog tried to kill me.

I asked him one pressing question, and he says he'll have an answer for me soon: How often does a person come to Evans Community Hospital for one reason, then twist or break her ankle on the piles of rocks dividing out the parking lot sections because no one is actually going to walk all the way down an aisle instead of cutting across the lot to get directly to the door, and need, say, ankle surgery?

I'll be certain to tell you all whatever Mayfield learns from his colleagues about this.

Speaking of follow-up, do you remember Yolanda? She was the quasi-willing participant as proxy in the Name Game. She left a note on Mayfield's desk that read, "I have to leave at 11 today, but please tell Amy Ponce I say 'Hello.'"

The whole dang bunch of them are just so super! I took the note and plan to put it in my scrapbook.

We're counting down to the Big Day on Thursday. There is a lot of sadness in this. Tears come out of the blue, often at inopportune times. The pressure this time is almost as great as it was for the first surgery.

But knowing that God has chosen Mayfield to do the job for us is an immeasurable comfort. We're going to march forward, and get through this, and one day count it as pure joy.

Lymphe-loser

I went in for a lymphedema follow-up appointment this morning. This afternoon, we'll go for our pre-op consult with Mayfield at Ft. Carson. During the interim, we've been running errands like crazy and, look! I have just enough time before leaving to give you some very good news:

The lymphedema has reversed! Wooo hoooo hooooo hoooo hoooooooooooooooooooooo!

Praise God. And thank you for all your prayers. This is a very tender mercy, and it's a very sweet icing on top of a very fancy cake.

How do we know it has reversed? Let me back up a bit.

At my first appointment with Lil, a lymphedema specialist, she measured both arms. To do this, she made marks on my arm every 4 centimeters starting at my main hand knuckle and going all the way up to my shoulder.

Then, at each mark, she used her tape measure to take the circumference of my arm at that mark. She then uses these measurements to calculate the "volume" of my arm in mL.

Lil measured my left arm, the unaffected one, to use a baseline. My right arm started off about 300 mL bigger. That sounds like a lot, but spread over the whole appendage, it was barely detectable.

But I detected it. And treating it right away was pretty key to our success.

As for the treatment, I've described before the manual drainage and compression sleeves. At night, I slept in a special, super-puffy foam sleeve with a waffled texture that left my arm looking like a buffet item each morning.

Each time I've gone back to Lil, my arm was smaller and smaller until today, when it measured the same size as the left. And this is with my having not worn compression sleeves for most of the past week. (I'd been feeling a very sore nerve or tendon or something and began to think that perhaps I was squeezing it too much, so I stopped. . .)

So, hoorah! I now need to wear a sleeve a) when I work out and b) when I fly (on an airplane, when flying to tend to my business as a superhero, it's not necessary).

I am also still taping my first two fingers, which have a teensy bit of swelling left in them.

God Bless Lil and the wonderful work she does! I can tell from my internet reading that a lot of women don't have a resource like her--so knowledgeable, kind and helpful. I'm exceedingly thankful for her.

AND, as she made the marks on my arm today, she commented, "We'll start down here at this little Barbie Doll wrist." Extra credit goes to the person who is FIRST EVER to compare one of my body parts to a Barbie Doll's.