Keeping busy is good!

You’d never know that Patty was retired!  She seems busier than me and I have a full-time job!  That’s such a great sign that she’s progressing in her recovery and looking forward to what each and every day brings!

You may know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  There are so many breast cancer related events going on.  Stein Mart has guaranteed to donate $100,000.00 to Susan Komen for the Cure and Patty is going to be part of the fundraising efforts this Saturday by participating in a fashion show at our local Stein Mart in Poway.  All the “models” are breast cancer survivors!  She’s pretty excited to participate in this event and today she meets with the organizers to get fitted with her “outfits!”  Pretty cool!  My wife, the model!  I’ll make sure to get some pictures for you to see.

This Saturday evening is the Komen Fundraiser that Patty, Nicole and the owner of Poway Jazzercise and Fitness Center have organized.  Patty and Nicole have already made their goal of $2300.00 each to participate in the Komen 3-day walk in November so the money raise from this event is icing on the cake!  Every penny helps!   It’s going to be quite the event.  As I said in an earlier post, the event starts at 6:00 p.m. with an hour Blast and Burn jazzercise class followed by an hour of pink champagne, raffle prizes and a silent auction.  They’ve already had quite a few RSVP’s and are hoping to pack the event with close to 50 people!  I won’t be able to attend (it’s a good thing since I don’t want to “Blast and Burn”) but Patty’s promised to take a lot of pictures that I can post.

Patty met with her reconstruction surgeon yesterday.  Everything is looking good!  It’s healing well and, to me, looks great!  She doesn’t need to see her for another month.  Most likely the surgeon will schedule the final procedure and Patty should be done by Christmas!  What a great Christmas present!

Patty being busy is the best thing for her!  She still has moment where the cancer scare is a reality.  She still has moments where she gets very frightened that the cancer will come back.  I don’t think those feelings will every go away.  So things like watching Avery during the week, going to bible study, participating in the Stein Mart fashion show and organizing the Komen fundraiser keep her on her toes and, most important, keep her mind focused on life!

 

Reconstruction surgery…

"Grandma Patty" and Mia being silly in their 4th of July schwag!

Tomorrow starts the next phase in Patty’s treatment… reconstruction surgery.

The surgery is a pretty big procedure but Patty’s ready to take it on!  Sure she’s a little nervous about the surgery.  Who wouldn’t be.  But, as she told me the other day, this surgery is different.  Her concern with other surgeries over the past year was that the surgeon would find more cancer.  Thank the Lord that wasn’t the case.  This surgery is all about breast reconstruction.  No snooping around looking for cancer.  Just reconstruction.

We’ve met with the reconstruction surgeon several times over the past two months.  She’s great!  From what everyone in the medical field has told us, she’s the best.  There’s a lot of people in the medical field who have a lot of confidence in her.  One person even told us that initially she performed a number of plastic surgeries for various reasons, but has now completely focused her practice on breast reconstruction.  Nothing else.

Without getting into details of the surgery, the best I can tell you is that its called Latissimus Flap Breast Reconstruction.  (If you really want to know the details of the surgery, do a Google search)  Since they’ll be working on both breasts, the surgeon estimates the procedure will take about six hours.  Patty will be in the hospital for a minimum of three nights so they can keep an eye on any possible infection.  Hopefully infection won’t be the case and she can come home with the three night minimum.

So… tomorrow morning we’ll be getting up around 4 a.m.  She needs to be at the Scripps Green Hospital in Torrey Pines by 5:30 a.m. and the surgery is scheduled for 7:00 a.m.  It’s going to be a long day.  If you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by, I’ll be in the waiting room!  If not… I’ll get something posted on here as soon as I can.

Send  your prayers in Patty’s direction!

“Treating for cure” means more doctor appointments!

Things have been moving so fast since the doctors are now “Treating for Cure!”  We met with two more incredible doctors over the past two weeks!  First was with the surgeon who will remove the cancer. 

Patty and I had an appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday, July 21st.  She is the kind of woman that you just feel comfortable with the moment you meet her.  She’s probably around her 40’s but has a bio that’s a mile long.  She has a great bedside manner and had Patty laughing harder than I’ve seen her laugh since this whole nightmare started!  She explained that she could “try” to do a lumpectomy but felt a mastectomy would be best to minimize reoccurrence.  Patty agreed with her suggestion.  She also suggested that we start the breast reconstruction at the same time as the surgery.  The doctor explained that once she removed the breast she would biopsy some of the lymph nodes in her breast which would determine what type of post operative treatment she would need… chemo… radiation… hormone therapy or a combination of treatments.  She said they’ll biopsy two or three lymph nodes and if they come back positive for cancer they’ll keep biopsying them until they find some that are clear.  Once they find the clear ones, they stop.  Hey, she’s the doctor.  At the end of the appointment, she said if everything works out, she could have the surgery by the end of the following week!  She obviously knew the urgency of this situation we were in, which the doctors at the other hospital failed to see!    (Hmmm.. do I sound bitter?)  It was close to noon and she said: “let me see if I can get a hold of the the reconstruction surgeon and see if he can see you.”  She left the room and came back a couple minutes later saying: “he’s just eating his lunch and I told him to put his lunch down and see you.  So he’s waiting for you right now!”  We thanked her and went downstairs to the reconstruction doctors office.  There he was, standing outside in the reception area waiting for us.  He took us in and conducted an exam with Patty.  He then sat us down and explained how the reconstruction procedure would work.  He was very thorough and made us feel very comfortable.  He then introduced us to his office manager who put things in motion for the surgery.  She coordinated both doctors schedules and whamo… a surgery date of July 29th!  We actually had a surgery date!  You don’t know how much we’ve wanted this date!