I'm now slightly radioactive!

Well, that’s how the nurse put it anyway. It’s actually called “sentinel lymph node mapping.” Today I was back in the nuclear medicine department in the Perot building at Presby – the same place I had my MRI, CT scan, and bone scan done a few weeks ago. I was grateful to my dad for taking me to my appointments, while Ben went back to work. Ben sure did do his share last week, going to everything with me. Today my dad also got to see where Stella goes to Mother’s Day Out (at Wilshire Baptist), when we dropped her off and picked her up. He said he had never seen so many babies! :)

So the nurse told me to make myself comfortable on the table while she got the injection ready. (Doesn’t that table look inviting?!) Then she stuck a big needle right into the place where my tumor was, and injected a full syringe of radioactive dye. Yow!!! Then she took some images to make sure the dye went where it’s supposed to. This will allow the surgeon to see which lymph nodes the tumor drained to first. In other words, if and when breast cancer cells begin to escape from a tumor, they travel to the lymph nodes under the arm, and the first lymph node they reach is called the 'sentinel' lymph node. So that’s the one they check during my surgery. Dr. B. will remove it and test it while I’m asleep to see if the cancer has spread. Fingers crossed, to say the least!

The other part of my surgery tomorrow will be placing the port in my chest for chemo. That will make it easier to get my treatments without having to get an IV every time. So this means I will be one more surgery and two incisions closer to beating this! As for any glowing body parts….I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe I should try to find a black light?!

I also met with my plastic surgeon for my final pre-op appointment. We are all set for reconstruction next week, immediately following the double mastectomy. It should be about a four-hour surgery all together. And I picked up some final paperwork from Dr. B., for his part of the surgery next week. So the total for today was 3 more doctor’s appointments – check!  

Going to try to get a good night’s sleep so I can fight this battle some more in surgery tomorrow! Night night!