April 21, 2009 Two Drains Removed 1 Left to Go

Hello all, We went to my 6:00 p.m. appointment with the plastic surgeon this evening and praise the Lord it was all good news!!! He removed two of the three drains!!! Even though I still have one abdominal drain left - I feel so free just having the other two gone!!! It has been very difficult having three drains over the last two weeks and they had to be stripped and drained every four hours. God bless my Mom and John... The doctor said that I was recovering well ahead of the game and that possibly next week I could have the naval stitches removed and hopefully the other abdonimal drain too. They took off all the bandages and checked the stitches (hip to hip) and around the new breast and they all looked very well too, he said. Fortunately, they were also able to do a lot of skin saving on the top of my breast during the mastectomy and said that one day I would eventually even regain feeling in that part again. The lab called today to verify that we wanted to go forward with the Oncotype DX test that my general surgeon had ordered this past Friday. John and I had discussed our concern that I had told the surgeon to go forward with the test because I wanted the additional test based on my own cancer, but we were concerned because we had not checked with our insurance company on what it would cover towards this test first. We became especially nervous when we discovered the test was almost $4,000.00. So, when they called to verify if we wanted to proceed with the test today, I inquired as to how much our insurance coverage would pay towards it. Praise the Lord, they said they had already checked and my insurance would pay 100% for this test!!! So they said my cancer would be sent overnight to LA California and that it would take 10-14 days to get the results back to my surgeon.

At any rate, I am now free from doctors the rest of this week (god willing) and go back to my general surgeon on Monday and plastic surgeon on Tuesday. I plan to try to become much more mobile this week and plan to try to get some sunshine too since I have been stuck indoors for so long. Well, way too long for me to be sitting in this chair - so I have to go now. Thank you all again so much for the prayers!!! I pray that God will show me His mercy yet again and let me escape the dreaded chemo treatments. However, as always - His will be done! Again, for anyone that has not listened to my nephew sing Holy is our King - here is a link. I had John rehit this 35 second soundbite over and over and over in the hospital and I can tell you it ministers to me like nothing else (except maybe Max Lucado's book The Cross) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiSYU8KS6gY

Angels gather round your throneAnd around your throne they bringPraises to the Living WordTo the awesome One they singYou are Holy... Is our King

Love to all,Liz