I awoke rather joyless this morning. Sore, restless and cranky. I actually felt a wee bit sick, which I haven’t at all for months. The shiny newness of my recovery period, filled with well wishes and around the clock narcotics, has dulled to a mundane routine anchored mostly by Advil.

It was such a beautiful day, which almost made me angry. Why is the earth shifting ever so slightly in the direction of glorious weather as I am tilting in the opposite direction? Feels like a cosmic F-you.

Now that I know chemo is on the docket, I am trying to look ahead but work backwards in time to figure out what my summer/fall will potentially look like. I’ll stay at my mom’s through the week, head home sometime this weekend as Joe will be off until Wednesday of next week…then what? I just want to start the chemo asap so we can get the timeline moving.

6pm today, NO CALLER ID. We know what this means.

It’s Dr. Pesce telling me that, after speaking to her colleagues and with my oncologist, they unanimously agreed that I should have a second surgery to remove the remaining nodes before I start chemo.

Dr. Pesce stressed that there is a solid chance they will do this surgery and find nothing which is always a good thing, but initially made me think, well then why do it at all? She immediately answered that question by saying that the more information we have on where this jerk-face cancer wants to hang out, the better we can tailor my chemotherapy. It’s all about thoroughness and efficiency.

If you remember from yesterday’s blog, had Dr. Pesce known last week that a node was affected, she would have taken them all on the spot, which means I would have 3 drains instead of 2 right now, but they would all be done within a few weeks and I could start chemo.

Oh and that is not all, I can’t get on the surgical schedule until the second week in June, and I will require another drain for 2 weeks thus pushing the start of chemo back to the end of June/early July.

I don’t necessarily care about having another general anesthesia surgery. I don’t care about the soreness and large scar I’ll always have in my armpit. I just hate these motherfucking drains. It looks likely that I will have drains hanging out of my body for a solid 4-5 weeks. Think about that for a second. A tube stitched into your body that drains out blood and other fluids. I have two varietals on tap- the one from the cancerous breast, which we will call Dismal Bastard Ale, and one from the clear breast called, Collateral Damage IPA.

Prost!