Thursday, March 06, 2008

Tuesday Feb. 26th began as an ordinary Mt. Sinai day in the life of Stephanie Green. I had a 12:30 appt with the plastic surgeon, where he inflated my boobs to a B cup. All was well, as you can see from the photos.









Then, I traveled downstairs to the regular surgeon to have the 4 alien drains removed. He yanked 'em out (not as painful as people tell you) and then he hit me with the bad news.
The BC had spread to one of the three lymph nodes. They'd found microscopic cells. For some reason, this was the straw that broke my back. The first time I'd broken down in a doc's office. The first time I think, that I'd even cried in front of mom and Dana.

Luckily, Dana's there to document the highs and the lows.

I had already scheduled chemo to commence this Monday the 10th; finishing on June 16th. Doc explained that if two more lymphs were also involved, it would mean radiation. Another 6 mos off treatment every day, tacked on to the end of chemo. There went my 'healthy by summer' mindset.

I scheduled the surgery for that Friday, Feb. 29th. I was not breaking my chemo sched. And fuck it, after a double mast, cutting out 8 lymphs and installing a port was nothing. In and out and home by 4 p.m.

Lynn, Mom, Dana and my shrink were in tow this time. My shrink is hil-fucking-larious, genius, cool, talented and my age. Shrink, who practices at Mt. Sinai as well, apparently ran off with Dana's video camera and filmed me in surgery. Mt. Sinai authorities promptly requested him to erase the film, in front of them. Damn. But he did manage to get this Grey's Anatomy-esque photo of my surgical chart:

After surgery, in their chic little hoodie.


Me and Dana clutching our baby bellies; I got one more tube in.


After the hospital, we stopped at Epicure and brought back the celebratory cake that I slept ate.




Today I found out that there are NO more lymphs infected. Drain out. All good, but I was puking my guts out all night and morning for no reason. Mom had to physically drag me out of bed to doctor. I puked in the Mt. Sinai bathroom. In the doctor's bathroom and in the doctor's office.