Mom's Surgery Update.

What an emotional day! Today was my mom's mastectomy. We left the house and headed for Fresno at 10:30 am. When we were just out of town when the hospital called to tell my mom to come in as soon as possible because they wanted to move up her surgery. It took about an hour to get her prepped and the actual surgery was about 1 1/2 hours long. The greatest thing was that everything went great. The Sentinal test came back negative which showed that the cancer had not spread to lymph nodes. What wonderful news! It took another 2 hours before we were able to see mom and she looked great. She was hooked up to a PCA pump that gave her a dose of Dilaudid (really gooood stuff!) when she pressed the button. Mom was smiling and even laughing. She was also so concerned about everyone else ( That's my Mom!). When the medicine finally caught up with her pain, we would be talking to her one moment then she would be asleep within a second. It was funny, but we knew it was our time to go. I hope she gets caught up on all the hours of sleepless nights.

We had a lot of family there for support which was great. It is amazing how an illness can bring a family closer. My biggest job was being in charge of calling people after I learned of the results. I was also in charge of Mom's cell phone. I learned from dad that mom has 92 people on her address book on her cell phone. Of course I did not call that many people, but it goes to show just how many people my mom keeps in touch with. I did spend the rest of the night on the phone, though, with what seemed to be the whole town my parents lived in. I would talk to one person and they would tell me that they then needed to call so and so and let them know how my mom was doing. The phone tree was definitely in progress. Thank goodness I did not leave the cell phone with mom because she would never get sleep with how many people I had to talk to and when we got home, I would be talking to someone on the land line and cell phones would be going off at the same time. My dad just refused to answer the phone. Overall everyone was just so kind and loving. I just could not believe how many people were concerned for my mom and telling me what a great person she is. I just hope that my mother realizes what a positive example she is to others. My heart is just so full right now and I can't express enough thanks to everyone for their concern and their prayers. This will continue to be a very trying recovery for my mom, but I feel a little more at peace leaving her knowing that so many people will make sure that she is taken care of.