In case you missed it - here's the review of the lumpectomy:

June 26:

Unable to sleep, I proceeded to the kitchen at 5:30am so I could at least get some calories down before my eating curfew of 7:00am. Scrambled egs. My drinking strategy (8:00am curfew) was not brilliant. I downed three pints of water within about 10 minutes causing me to throw up and have to start over.

It was a morning of acute anxiety. Unable even to bite into half an Ativan, I paced the house furiously waiting for the 10:15am departure time.

On checking in to the hospital, we were guided to a “prep” room by a very nice ancient lady volunteer whom, I feared, would fall over and die before we got there. Seriously, we crept to the room at a snail’s pace. She kept offering to help us when we knew, most surely, that we should be helping her.

My roomie: Evelyn, aged 63, was getting a hysterectomy. I never laid eyes on her and her friends because of the discretely drawn curtain but I could hear them clearly. Evelyn had arrived with a typed-out list of the meds she is taking. The nurse praised her for her organizational abilities. I assumed I was going to get minus points. I mean, I know I must have taken Advil at some point in the last six months but there’s no way I could remember when.

At 11:30am Dr. Lim arrived to shoot me (the tumor, to be precise) up with some radio-active gunk to track the progress of the cancer from the breast to the lymph nodes. It had to be hand delivered by a technician and was packaged in a large metal canister from which I was sure a fog of dry ice would eminate as it was unscrewed. Not so. It was all very unexciting.

1:45pm: a team of nurses swept in to prep me for surgery. I felt like a Formula One car on a pit stop. The head nurse asked me questions and fitted my compression socks, while nurse # 2 hooked me up to a drip, nurse #3 did an ECG and nurse #4 drew blood. Seriously I thought they were trying to beat their best time.

2:30pm: show time. Hot anesthesiologist (yeah, baby) gave me some calming meds through the drip (which did instantly calm) and wheeled me to the OR. I’ve never been in an OR. It was much larger and “whiter” than I imagined. I asked about music and they offered up Creedence Clearwater Revival….”fuck that” I thought and said something much more polite.

Cut to the recovery room. I woke up as they wheeled me in and, in all honestly, immediately felt pretty good. Much better, in fact, than I felt after I had my wisdom teeth taken out. No nausea and they’d shot up my boob with a ton of analgesic which wouldn’t wear off for some hours. The only reason I was in there for over an hour is because there was no room ready for me in the hospital (apparently they were packed that night.)

Dr Lim delivered the good news while I waited. The procedure went as well as had been planned. The tumor hadn’t grown – still only 1.5cm and he’d only had to remove one “hot” sentinel lymph node*. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean cute (a la anesthesiologist.)

Originally, it had been planned that I would stay over night; however, on meeting my next roomie – who moaned and howled in pain while watching Jeopardy – I felt the need to get out as soon as possible. So, possibly unwisely, I resumed my early morning drinking strategy so I could pee more than 100ml and prove absolutlely that I was fit to go home. I made 600ml my first try and they let me out at 10:00pm.

*post-surgery pathology determined that the tumor was actually 2.1cm - stage 2 - but that I am node negative...some good news there.