The Journey

They say life is a journey, not a destination, so instead of a daily summary, I'm going to post a blow by blow account of the day's activities, so we can all walk this road together.

6:00 AM Trela, Eric, and Terry slowly drag themselves out of bed, after a flurry of suds begin the relatively easy drive to Rochester. Trela takes this opportunity to snuggle with Cavanaugh's Pink Puppy and Kile's blankey, and take a nap. (I wish I had a picture.)

9:00 AM We arrived for the appointments. First on the list was Nurse Practitioner, Lori. As with all of the practitioners here at Mayo, Lori had an outstanding couch side manner. She answered almost all of our questions, and put out an APB on answers to questions she didn't know.

(Imagine the voice of Jack Bauer)

The following takes place between the hours of 10 AM and 11 AM

Time for the surgeon and her entourage. Dr. Degnim, a nurse, a student, and her resident stopped by for a group recon mission. After a brief exam and a succinct conversation, we decided on a simple mastectomy with a sentinel node biopsy. The belief is that it is unlikely that there is nodal involvement, but thoroughness is the mantra at this clinic.

The following takes place between the hours of 11 AM and 4 PM

Next up is the oncology crew. Dr. Okuno is preceded by his fellowship student, who does yet another exam. This is probably the best appointment of the day because we got so many answers. Trela was immediately comfortable with Dr. Okuno as he had lived in Chicago and knew the location of Super Dawg. (I can think of other reasons to trust a physician, but I try to steer clear of Trela's logic.) During this eventful appointment, we charted our course for the next several months. More or less.

First as many of you already know, the surgery is the main intervention, however Dr. Okuno recommended a preventive course of chemo, which we also expected. The chemo will likely be administered as a combination 2 different drug regimens 5x weekly for 3 weeks with one week off. That 4 week cycle will be repeated 4x with each drug as I understand. We're not certain of these timetables, our brains have somewhat filled up by this point.

Also, while we expected the mastectomy, we weren't quite prepared for the next 2 hours. After a phone consultation with the radiation oncologist (at some point radiation may be part of the treatment, that is still unclear) we learned it would be advisable to begin reconstruction at the same time as the mastectomy.

After a quick meeting with Dr. Williams who we had consulted with 2 weeks ago, we were shuttled over to the plastic surgeon, weighed, measured, and photographed for posterity. No lunch for us today!

That sentinel node scan to find the location for biopsy took up the next 90 minutes and after the 5th gown of the day was changed back to street clothes, we went directly to pre-admission at the business office, followed by an Anne Rice experience to count some white blood cells before surgery.

4PM and we are ready for a nap!

On the bright side, after a phone call to the Hotel de Grammie, we were informed that potty training efforts are showing signs of success. (Signs of success in potty training are pretty visible) **authors note: Trela strongly objects to the imagery of the previous statement, as well as any grammietical or punktuation arrors kontaied with in.