Here's the scoop, boys and girls...

Sister Ann is waiting for an MRI to make sure the big blob
in her sinuses isn't making a return.
She's been taking on a lot of responsibilities to make up for
Carol and I being restricted duds lately. Bless her heart.
I don't know what we would do without her.

Carol has started her new chemo treatment routines to
deal with the tumor in her lung (metastacized  from her colon.)
They put a port in her chest last week. When she goes for
treatment chemo gets run through the port, plus they attach
a pump to the port to dose her with even more meds. Five
drugs in all. The procedure takes about three hours and she
has to come home with the pump. We take her back after two
days to have the pump disconnected and the port flushed.
Repeat every two weeks.
So far the side effects are minimal. The big thing for right now
is that she is sleeping a lot. Supposedly that will taper off in time
and her energy level will get better. I hope so and so does she.
As of right now her treatments are scheduled through April.

As for me... I'm scheduled for reversal surgery December 2.
One day short of three months since the emergency surgery
and attaching the ostomy bag. I am a happy camper.
Now all I need to do is figure out how to prevent this cluster-fuck
from ever happening again. 
If all goes well after surgery (meaning the bowels go back to
working the way they're supposed to) I should get to come home
about three days later.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed for all three of us, please. 

Surgery complete...

What a relief when things turn out better than one's
imagination will lead one to fear.

There's one long incision from the middle of her chest
to just under her arm. No skin grafts.
Two drain tubes that I empty and record the quantity
twice a day.

Surgery started at 1 pm Thursday, lasted almost three
hours, spent two hours in recovery and she was back
home before 2 pm Friday. She has refused to take anything
for pain. Well, I talked her into taking one Motrin when
she mentioned her lower back was stiff. She argued
about taking that! She insists that there is only a tiny
bit of discomfort and I'm not seeing any signs that would
contradict that. (Her bottle of Percocet is looking pretty
good to me.)

The surgeon said they did not remove all the cancer.
The team decided that removing everything surgically
would make her healing too risky and delay radiation.
She has a follow-up visit with the oncologist on Thursday
and the surgeon on Friday. The surgeon is hoping the healing
will be complete in three weeks so radiation can be started
soon after that.

And, in the meantime, she's still getting herceptin infusions
every three weeks. Indefinitely. Those are pretty simple
compared to full chemo. One hour, start to finish.

As long as radiation will knock out the rest of the cancer,
things look pretty good.

You lovely folks who keep visiting here and offering good
thoughts, prayers and encouragement are very, very much
appreciated. I send big virtual thank-you hugs out to all of you.

Safe where?...

My sister's surgery is scheduled for January 3.
I asked the surgeon how long she'd be in the hospital
and she answered, "Oh, we'll send her home the next day.
We prefer to get the patients out of the hospital ASAP
to reduce the risk of infection."
I asked, "Infection from the hospital?" and she nodded yes.
How sad is that? Hospitals used to be safe places to recover.
They'll be sending her home with drain tubes and bags to
monitor, and possibly skin grafts to keep clean.
One of her friends has a daughter who is an RN at a local
hospital and she offered to stop by the house to make sure 
I'm doing things right. Thank goodness.

Most of yesterday was spent watching the reports of the
horror in Newtown, Connecticut.
Nowhere is safe.