Doctor, doctor, give me the news...

Tuesday morning. We arrived around the crack of dawn. Or the crack of six. Somewhere in there. Surgery wasn't til about 10:00, but there was a procedure first that basically would turn me into a geiger counter specimen. I was given the requisite gown and a nifty zipping suit bag for my clothes (no doubt priced out at $595 on my hospital bill). A young woman came by and did a fast measurement of my lymphatic fluid to determine if I was at high risk for lymphedema (I was not, thankfully). Then, they took me to a procedure room where I was injected with a radioactive dye that would allow the doctor to use that aforementioned geiger counter to find the sentinel lymph nodes. The doctor for this procedure prepared me with a warning, "this is going to hurt like a mother." I think she actually used a more technical term, but the reality is, it hurt like a mother. A real stinger. But I sucked it up and didn't share any of the lingo I've picked up over the years -- lingo that my mother would have tagged "unladylike." Lingo that so easily rolls off my tongue when some stooge cuts me off in traffic. I was told that this was a blue dye and that it would have to leave the body eventually, so don't be alarmed when I peed blue. That was November. I haven't peed blue yet. So, I'm guessing I could still be the first to enter the pitch-black mine and light the way. The proverbial canary, aglow.

Back to my room. The anaesthesiologist came calling and explained what she would do. Jeff eyed her suspiciously. It pains me to admit that, while progressive in many ways, he still prefers his president and his airline pilot to be a male. I suspect he would also prefer whoever gasses him, hangs him off the edge of a cliff, and whisks him back to life again, be a male as well. But I was fine with her. Other than looking about 14 years old, she seemed to have a handle on the task. And if I was dead wrong, he wouldn't have the opportunity for a "told you so."

Then the surgeon came calling. I inquired about the tests I had had the day before. Once again, he confirmed that the left breast was clear and the right underarm looked good too. Oh yeah, a bundle branch block showed up in my EKG, but that's pretty common and we don't do anything about it anyway. Usually. We don't? I figured that was fodder for a future discussion. There was enough on today's plate.

To recap: one incision on the top of the breast to remove the tumor and a second incision to remove three sentinel lymph nodes, guided by the geiger counter. If those were clean and uninvolved, then any succeeding lymph nodes should be fine as well.

They started a drip. Gave me a nifty little blue hat. Let Jeff give me the kiss off and took me away to the operating room. I was calm. I was ready. Let's get this bad boy out of there.