I had two appointments today at Ellis. One with my plastic surgeon, which was my second fill into my expander and the second appointment was my post-op with my breast surgeon. My plastic surgeon, Dr. Colbert is very happy with my healing and progress with my expander since surgery. He answered some questions for me regarding intermittent pain and swelling that I am having and explained that this is normal. For those not familiar with the reconstruction process, I have an expander that is sewn into my pectoral muscle and is also anchored to a rib. Therefor moving can sometimes cause pain as this foreign object inside of me may get slightly pulled in different directions. I have to sleep on my back and slightly elevated, which is not my usual sleep position so that gravity doesn't cause this expander to move or settle in one direction or another. This is just my way of explaining it and hope this makes sense. I am feeling better each day although if I am up and about for more the 3-4 hours without resting, I feel a bit fatigued and my body hollers at me through pain or soreness to stop and rest. 

I met with Dr. Albright, my breast surgeon and she explained more about finding micrometastasis  in my lymph node. These are microscopic cells of cancer found in the lymph node that was removed. This is scary but not a death sentence by any means. A portion of my tumor is sent off for a test called the oncotype and this will help determine if I need chemotherapy or not. We are hoping for a score of 11 or lower. Please pray specifically for this!! I will be meeting with a medical oncologist on Sept 22 to discuss this and the pros and cons. I have a referral to a radiation oncologist also to discuss the need for radiation. So at this time, I do not know my course of treatment quite yet. Good news from Dr. Albright was that she got clear margins, which means she was able to remove all the cancer. PTL! I will also have my first Physical Therapy appointment next Tuesday at Ellis. Thank you all for following my journey. I love each and every one of you and appreciate the love, support and prayers.