A lot to update on.. I will start with two weeks ago.

I had my double or bi-lateral mastectomy, they removed one sentinel lymph node. My plastic surgeon and I had discussed that he would only complete everything if he felt nothing would go wrong and after the fact he had left some extra skin on the left breast because he worried placing an incision would result in the skin not surviving. A week later, we went back in for surgery to remove that extra skin and some skin on the right breast that had not survived. The first surgery was 5 hours, waking up and recovery took about 2 hours and I did spend the night in the hospital. The second surgery was about 2 hours and was a much faster wake up and I got to go home right after. Healing has been going smoothly, I got my drains removed Monday the 27th and I am so much more comfortable without those in. I have weaned completely off the opiate pain medication, and am using tylenol for any pain. 

Today I saw my Oncologist; We discussed my pathology results. This part is really hard for me because I had set my hopes extremely high that surgery would remove everything and my lymph nodes would be clear. Cancer however has a different plan. My original plan, as some may remember was chemo, then radiation. I had hoped with the response from my chemo and my tumor shrinking I wouldn't need radiation. In the sentinel lymph node they removed, there is cancer present. They dissected my tumor and breast tissue surrounding it; as it turns out the Doctors had staged it lower then it should've been, at present it is actually stage 3. The cancer cells were surrounding the tumor and the area around it still reached 5.5 cm by 4.5 cm and the cells were moving through the lymphatic system within the tumor. 

I will need 6-7 weeks of radiation 5 days a week, which will start in a couple weeks. This messes with my reconstruction a bit because the plan was to slowly restretch my skin and now we have to really speed up the process and get it stretched before I start radiation as the skin doesn't stretch after. After radiation I will have 6 months of an oral chemo, which is different from the infusions I was getting. We haven't dove into that yet so I don't have a ton of detail.

Also, today after my appointment we went to breakfast and the hostess called Nick and I gentlemen, so my hair is growing back, but just enough that I look a bit like Sid from Toy Story or Chad Micheal Murray from a Cinderella Story. My mental health is not superb right now, especially being stuck at home resting and healing when I'm used to a lot more human interaction. Also the fact that I really had been manifesting this as being the end of my journey and its not. I have one of the largest and most amazing support groups, every single human in my life has been incredible. I haven't lost anyone important to me because I have cancer, in fact everyone has rallied around me. I stay extremely positive, and I still am about beating it, but at this moment I just feel like everything is extra heavy and I can't really release it by exercising or dancing or a vacation or really doing anything using my arms. I need to trust my body and let it heal from surgery and then focus on the plan for the future.