Best to you, Doc.

Glad its finally here for you Ortho...the waiting is tough. I hope the best for you.

Hey, Ortho. Just wondering how you are.


Sent by thought transference

I was thinking the same -but looking in the wrong forum for the thread. hope all went well.

Let's just take a moment to say ... FUCK CANCER!


Sent by thought transference

Nothing yet from orthodoc? That seems a bit unorthodoc's.

That surgery is pretty disabling, especially if any lymph nodes were taken.

If you're checking in and don't feel up to posting, then know we're thinking of you Orth :)

there goes Dana, putting words in my mouth.

wait.


make that taking the words out of my mouth.

You're Dana's sockpuppet. :lol:

Hey guys, thanks for the good wishes. Since the 6th I've been feeling pretty much like I lost an argument with a Mack truck; haven't even gotten on a computer 'til now.

The surgery went well enough, although the plastic surgeon had some trouble with the reconstruction - I had a 'lat flap' done, where they take part of your latissimus dorsi muscle and pull it around to where it was never meant to be, and I guess my lat argued about the whole deal. Wouldn't you know ... be nice to your muscles, work them, develop them, and they get argumentative. :p:

I had a positive lymph node on quick section (quick pathology check done on the sentinel node(s) during surgery) so they took a bunch more nodes. Then I found out some new things, such as that I'm allergic to Dilaudid and Percs. And the old medical jinx followed me - if you're a doc, you get the most 'interesting' complications. I'm so over the whole 'this NEVER happens - theoretically it can, but we never see it' thing. And being woken every 30 minutes 24/7 for blood pressure checks because it's fallen into the 'amoeba' range ...

So I had a bad few days but have now turned the corner and am feeling more human. Being home = finally able to get some sleep! I got a verbal on the path report last night and it seems there's only one positive node out of the ones they took, which (given there's at least one) is the best possible news at this point.

The plan from here is: rest, recover, catch up on my reading and assignments for this week, rinse, repeat. I see the onc next week and we'll settle on a plan; looks like chemo is happening but I shouldn't need radiation. Have to build my hemoglobin back up before chemo (it dropped like a stone during surgery) so hopefully I'll have a few weeks to do that first.

And, of course, I have to catch up on things here! I missed you guys! :)

Oh, we missed you too honey:)

Sounds like you've had a bitch of a time the last week. Glad you're feeling a little more human now :P

What are your assignments like at the moment? Are they interesting or workaday?

Most of them are pretty standard. I have to get going on some bigger projects that'll be due later in the fall - have to turn in my topic and initial literature search soon and then work up a presentation, sort of thing. Projects using SAS software - I know it'll be good to be proficient at writing code for it but right now it's an :eek:! And I have an Occupational Hazards Assessment lab that I have to figure out along with my group; we each do one part of a workplace analysis and report each week. Climbing around in factories isn't going to be on my agenda for a couple of weeks. And weekly quizzes in some courses. It should all be manageable if I can stay caught up and then work ahead over the next three weeks or so.

Sounds like something you can get your teeth into without requiring massive amounts of creative energy.

My favourite kind of task :p