Two Down, One to Go & Path Report / Treatment Update

Patty went to the have her drains checked today. Fortunately they pulled two of them. Unfortunately, they left one and it probably will not come out until next week. She said it was very painful to have them pulled out. Much worse than she expected. Her exact words were "it felt like someone was stabbing me but the knife was coming out rather than going in." Ouch! It makes me hurt just thinking about it. Its not been as big a relief as we thought it would but she may be able to sleep on one side tonight, we hope.

I got the final amended path report of Patty's surgery today. Originally, it showed two out of seven lymph nodes were positive. This was not surprising as we already knew one was positive for sure. I was actually surprised there wasn't more after speaking with the surgeon after surgery. What was surprising also was that they only found seven total lymph nodes. In this type of surgery they usually want a minimum of ten nodes. I asked the surgeon about this and he said he was surprised there wasn't more sampled as well. He then requested the pathologists to review the tissue again and indeed they found six more that were negative for a total of two out of thirteen positive lymph nodes.

We originally thought Patty would not have to have radiation treatments if she had one-three positive nodes because the literature (medical speak here) demonstrated it was only needed with four or more positive nodes. But, new clinical studies have shown better local recurrence control even in patients with one-three positive nodes. Thus, Patty will indeed have radiation treatments. This will consist of six-seven weeks of treatment following the three months of chemotherapy. The Herceptin infusions will start the same time as regular chemotherapy and will continue weekly for fifty-two weeks. Click Here for Got that? Yea, me too. Clear as mud. So now, will she not only be the love of my life, my lovely wife, the mother of our children, but a patient as well. This gets weirder everyday.

I've had many encouraging notes and emails from many of you. I thank you. It is encouraging to know that anything I write can help others slow down and admire the important things in life. We did a Bible study many years ago by Henry Blackaby called "Experiencing God." One of the best studies I've ever done. One of the things he asks you to do during the study is to look for where God is working and join in. Well, I don't think I could get any closer.