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This surgery wasn't quite as entertaining as the orthopedic ones, but I didn't expect it to be. There was some problem with the wire locator insertion. This is a thin wire, the size of beading wire but stiffer, that they thread through a fine hollow needle (lengthwise, not through an eye), and ine up with the titanium marker that they put in when they did the biopsy. I had two markers because I had two biopsies, and the doctor had to confirm that it was the cylinder and not the hourglass one-I knew that! but the techs answered, of course. By the way, the techs are great. They are so competent and professional and considerate, you couldn't ask for more.
It was hard for the doctor to get it to line up properly and then it kept bouncing out of position before the confirmation photos could be taken and the wire could be taped down on the outside. And then there was also some problem with the mammorgram machines, one of which wouldn't take pictures at all reliably. So a half-hour procedure took two and a half hours and we had to move three times (once because of the racalcitrant machine, once to change to another type of machine so I could lie down and gravity wouldn't be affecting the wire or something, and finally back to the original machine which the techs were told had recovered from its sulk, though I noticed that it two three tries to get the machine to taken the final picture). But that wasn't too bad from my perspective. Just for a while there my toes were complaining about standing in a fixed position for a long time while encased in ohmydear shoes.
The dye injection wasn't bad. It was supposed to happen first, but there was some issue with being able to get the nuclear medicine room (btw: recall how all the right-wing people you meet on the internet are always raging about how MRI had to have its name changed because ohmydear nuclear couldn't be in a medical name? But--here I am, going to the fourth floor to the Nuclear Medicine department, and later I'll be going to the Radiation Oncologist, so what's with that theory?) and they sent me downstairs to radiology/breast imaging first. Then when we finally got the breast wire taped down we went back upstairs and got the shots.
By the time we got to the hospital proper it was the time I was supposed to already be under anasthesia in the operating room but nobody was upset about it. One of the nurses said it happens all the time, which I can clearly imagine.
I had a different anasthesiologist, which would have been a mite disappointing but I liked him a lot too. He read me the Act about getting myself checked for sleep apnea (because of how I stop breathing when I'm given sedatives), so somehow I have to get that squeezed in between the hand therapy and the cancer therapy (& by the way, the cortisone shot in my right thumb has all but cured it, so it's not so bad that I haven't gotten the hand clinic lined up yet, I guess: I might ask for a repeat in the other thumb as it's getting pretty bad too).
As I said, the surgery itself...well, what do I know, I was unconscious, but to all accounts it was unremarkable and I certainly feel fine now. One good thing I wasn't expecting is that the incision for the lymph node removal isn't in the armpit but a couple of inches below. This way they don't cut the arm muscles, they just retract them, and the area is dryer than the armpit so it heals better. It might be why it doesn't hurt. I haven't had any pain medication because I honestly don't need it, and so therefore instead of being woozy and tired from that, I'm having the same kind of happy rebound I get from giving blood.
On another front, I had an entirely pleasant revelation. I can submit to non-paying and token-paying markets this year, instead of piling everything up for next year (I'll still pile up some stuff, and my main writing time is going to two books I swear they will be short enough to write in a year). But it does mean I don't have to completely lose momentum. Not that I had much.
So therefore I am writing short stories about Crow Girl and Pigeon Girl! (Libiena and Mily, respectively)
Also, yesterday there were entirely too many yellow wild oats and foxtails for the end of March and there is no rain on the horizon and this is a blot on my otherwise sunny mood. It is way too soon for summer to start.
It was hard for the doctor to get it to line up properly and then it kept bouncing out of position before the confirmation photos could be taken and the wire could be taped down on the outside. And then there was also some problem with the mammorgram machines, one of which wouldn't take pictures at all reliably. So a half-hour procedure took two and a half hours and we had to move three times (once because of the racalcitrant machine, once to change to another type of machine so I could lie down and gravity wouldn't be affecting the wire or something, and finally back to the original machine which the techs were told had recovered from its sulk, though I noticed that it two three tries to get the machine to taken the final picture). But that wasn't too bad from my perspective. Just for a while there my toes were complaining about standing in a fixed position for a long time while encased in ohmydear shoes.
The dye injection wasn't bad. It was supposed to happen first, but there was some issue with being able to get the nuclear medicine room (btw: recall how all the right-wing people you meet on the internet are always raging about how MRI had to have its name changed because ohmydear nuclear couldn't be in a medical name? But--here I am, going to the fourth floor to the Nuclear Medicine department, and later I'll be going to the Radiation Oncologist, so what's with that theory?) and they sent me downstairs to radiology/breast imaging first. Then when we finally got the breast wire taped down we went back upstairs and got the shots.
By the time we got to the hospital proper it was the time I was supposed to already be under anasthesia in the operating room but nobody was upset about it. One of the nurses said it happens all the time, which I can clearly imagine.
I had a different anasthesiologist, which would have been a mite disappointing but I liked him a lot too. He read me the Act about getting myself checked for sleep apnea (because of how I stop breathing when I'm given sedatives), so somehow I have to get that squeezed in between the hand therapy and the cancer therapy (& by the way, the cortisone shot in my right thumb has all but cured it, so it's not so bad that I haven't gotten the hand clinic lined up yet, I guess: I might ask for a repeat in the other thumb as it's getting pretty bad too).
As I said, the surgery itself...well, what do I know, I was unconscious, but to all accounts it was unremarkable and I certainly feel fine now. One good thing I wasn't expecting is that the incision for the lymph node removal isn't in the armpit but a couple of inches below. This way they don't cut the arm muscles, they just retract them, and the area is dryer than the armpit so it heals better. It might be why it doesn't hurt. I haven't had any pain medication because I honestly don't need it, and so therefore instead of being woozy and tired from that, I'm having the same kind of happy rebound I get from giving blood.
On another front, I had an entirely pleasant revelation. I can submit to non-paying and token-paying markets this year, instead of piling everything up for next year (I'll still pile up some stuff, and my main writing time is going to two books I swear they will be short enough to write in a year). But it does mean I don't have to completely lose momentum. Not that I had much.
So therefore I am writing short stories about Crow Girl and Pigeon Girl! (Libiena and Mily, respectively)
Also, yesterday there were entirely too many yellow wild oats and foxtails for the end of March and there is no rain on the horizon and this is a blot on my otherwise sunny mood. It is way too soon for summer to start.