Tues March 6th

Recovery is going slow and steady. I seem to be doing a little better every day. I have had family and friends over every day to help out with the kids. Lifting still hurts and I am still very bruised so even having my arm by my side is uncomfortable. Jon has been working nights this week so I had my mom stay over on Sunday. My sister Amy left on Monday night. I was so glad that she was able to come out with my niece Marnie and help out. It was so nice to get to visit with her and have her be there. I miss her so much living so far away.
Yesterday afternoon Alex was sitting on my lap and elbowed me pretty hard and then at dinner Olivia accidentally ran into me. It was defiantly a set back. Today I went to the surgeon's office for my post op appointment. He took off the steri stripes and he also removed the drain. OUCH is all I have to say about that. It only took a few seconds but man it hurt. I was holding my side on the dressing putting pressure on it the whole rest of the night. I also loaded up on the pain pills again. It does feel good to have it out and not pulling on my skin but now it hurts. My incisions otherwise seem to be healing nicely. I am really bruised though. It looks like someone colored all over my chest with a florescent yellow highlighter. Dr. Chiavetta said it would be okay to shower before I went to bed tonight without having to worry about covering up my surgery site. I had to peel the gauze off the site where they removed my drain today because I was holding it so tight all evening that it healed to the gauze. Now it is hurting again. What a process. The surgeon also said that I should try to move my arm around to get my full range of motion back even though it is uncomfortable. He said that since I didn't have to do a full lymph node dissection it should be too long before I have my full range of motion back. All I can say is that it defiantly looks like a battle ground on my chest. It is a good thing that I am small breasted so I won't have to worry to much about looking uneven or buying an expensive prosthesis.
Yesterday I read this autobiography that my fellow breast cancer fighter Shari Robinson had let me borrow about one of her relatives. I started reading it last night and couldn't put it down. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and fought it and was fine for a few years and then they found cancer in her ovaries. It was so interesting to read about her journey and all the things that she did to try and fight this awful disease. She did so many trial studies and flew all over the world for treatments. What a brave women. She was fighting for her life and what an amazing example of courage her story is to me. I am so glad that I am doing everything in my power to fight this and hopefully it won't return anywhere else. Thanks for loaning it to me Shari!