Full update

Written March 13, 2013.

My surgeon is pretty great. Her name is Dr. Amara Malik. After we introduced ourselves the first thing she said to me was "You're going to be fine, this is just a nuisance and we'll get through it and at the end you'll be great", then she said "I'm going to tell you a million other things today, if you don't remember anything else, that's alright, the only thing you need to remember is that you're going to be just fine". 

She spent several hours patiently explaining everything to us and allowing us to ask questions.  We scheduled the lumpectomy for Wednesday, March 27th. About 4 - 6 weeks after my surgery I'll probably be going through radiation for 5 weeks. After that hormone treatment. Maybe or maybe not chemotherapy. Hoping not to need chemotherapy. 

I'm still processing all this information. I took PTO today. I kind of just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for a bit. But I actually got through a lot of old paperwork which felt good. 

My Dad is going to come out for the week of the surgery. I'm really impressed. He's going to fly out here by himself. Knowing that he doesn't like flying and he rarely travels without his wife it means a lot that he's doing that for me. We booked his flight today. 

My good friend Karin from Minneapolis was already planning to come out for a visit from Friday, March 29th - April 1st. She has generously offered to forego spa and wine tasting to hang out with me while I recover. So there will be a little bit of overlap between her visit and my Dad's. Keith will be here for the day of the surgery but after that I think he's going to join some friends who already had a rafting trip planned. He's delaying joining them for a day. 

My good friend Rena is coming over tomorrow night to help me do some meal planning for the next few weeks. I'm trying to improve my diet. Today I had a several smoothies (Bok Choy with frozen Pineapple and ginger) and then Kale with Pineapple. So yummy! I'm going to try to avoid sugar, wheat, meat, processed foods, and alcohol for the next few weeks. Hopefully it'll have a positive impact on my body's ability to fight whatever it needs to fight and help me get in good shape to recover from the surgery.