Update

It has been a LONG few days, but things are slowly starting to look up a bit. On Monday I had my bone scan and it looks upon first glance that my bones are clear! YIPEE! Of course, they have to be sent to "the person upstairs" to really look at them, but everyone seemed really confident. The worst part of the bone scan was having to drink two huge bottle of what they named "Creamy Vanilla Smoothie". I knew it would be bad when three people apologized when they handed them to me, and everyone in the waiting room from nuclear medicine cringed and apologized. Well, it ain't no smoothie! It took me 35 minutes to drink them both down and I was forcing myself. It was easier to eat beetles, grasshoppers, and overgrown maggots off the bug carts in Thailand than it was to stomach this stuff. But, alas, I finished and the results turned out okay! I also had a pet scan, which is when they injected some clear liquid into my veins and took pictures of all my internal organs to make sure they were tumor free. The nurse said it would "make me very hot and feel like I was peeing my pants". She was right. I should find out those results in a few days.

I also had a follow up with my plastic surgeon and my breast surgeon today. Both were extremely pleased with my progress and how the new "girls" looked. When my breast surgeon saw them, she raised her hands straight up in the air and gave a delighted shout. "They look beautiful!" I haven't ever had a reaction like that to my boobs, too bad it was from a surgeon... or in this case, maybe not!  I will demand this reaction from here on out from whomever may see the "girls"!

On the other side of my life, Amy had her surgery today. I went with her family to check her in this morning at 8:30, and got home tonight around 7:30. The surgery itself was about 6-7 hours. It went well and most of the tumor was removed. They had to leave some behind in order not to hurt Amy in any way, impair her vision, movement, etc. She is now in the ICU resting peacefully. She did manage to open one eye when I went in and say, "thanks for coming". My response, "ummm, sure!" Her mom and dad are with her tonight and it really brings into perspective how my parents must have been feeling this whole time. I gotta say, it is easier to be on the patient side! I knew I could kick some serious cancer butt. But, the waiting and the worrying on the other side, now that's hard!

The even crazier thing about all this, if anyone can believe this. I have another wonderfully close friend that I worked with at New Mark in the pulmonary ICU fighting a rare lung disease. She is literally down the hall from the ICU where Amy is. I spent today between the waiting room and Erin's room. Erin is fighting hard, and has the same spunk and love of life as Amy and I do. So, I guess the saying that things happen in threes really is true. That just means the rest of you can all rest easy! Tomorrow I will jump between rooms to visit these two people I love, as they have both been there for me! We will survive this together by supporting each other and from all of the love and support from every one of you out there hoping and praying for us. We will win! When Erin first saw me last week, she opened one eye, got out her white board and wrote, "huh, you're supposed to look worse that me!" I agreed and let her know she would be up in a flash.

I am recovering, but much of my recovering is happening in the hospital. They have really nice chairs in the ICU waiting room. Who needs the couch.