October = surgery

October's been a crazy month for the Thomas family. Besides the usual hubbub of normal life, we've had a little extra excitement.

First, I had my little incident (said with more than a touch of sarcasm) with the emergency surgery and subsequent days in the hospital. Of course, that threw everyone's schedule into disarray and meant my family made many unplanned trips to visit me.

Then my dad had surgery last Thursday to repair a hernia. The surgery went well, he was up walking that afternoon and I think he started pestering the doctors to let him go home the next day. Since he was eating, walking and didn't need pain medication, they sprung him on Saturday. Now he's home going stir crazy, ooops, I mean recovering.

Today my mom is undergoing her prophylactic double mastectomy. This is the same surgery I had planned for this fall, but unfortunately, my cancer reoccurence and now my abdominal surgery postponed this procedure. As carriers of the BRCA-1 gene mutation, my mom and I have a high risk of getting breast cancer. We both decided we'd rather undergo and heal from the mastectomy and reconstruction, rather than fight breast cancer and need the surgery.

It's a one-day procedure; she'll be sent home tonight. That seems really quick to me, but apparently that's the way the doctors do it. Of course, with her operation scheduled for 3 p.m. this afternoon, it's going to be late when she can start the trek home with my sister.

Mom and Angie are coming to my appointment with Dr. P this morning and then this afternoon, I'll head to the hospital with them for mom's surgery. I'm going to wait with Angie as long as I can (translation: as long as I'm comfortable and not exhausted).

October's been a stupidly insane month. Let's just hope November is calm and peaceful. I think we could all use it.

Tina