Friends:

My niece, Kalena, came to visit Tuesday with her husband, Ben, and her 1-yr-old, Kala'i.  She dyed my hair purple, like when I was on chemo just before I lost it.  It's as beautiful as I remembered.  It turns out a dark, smokey, velvety blackish-purple.  Gorgeous.  Her 8-yr-old, Kaikea, couldn't come due to a school thing, but she sent me a handwritten, hilarious card, and she taped a cookie into it.  And especially funny, she carefully taped it around the bag-perforations, so it would be "easy-open".  I don't know why that cracked me up so much.  What a mind!  And she certainly knows Auntie's propensity for cookies!

Saw the doctor yesterday.  Still no driving.  I think I'm going to go nuts.

To my dismay, only one of the last 2 drains came out.  I'm very disappointed, because I'm losing a lot of sleep & getting back cramps and headaches from sleeping on the WRONG side, and really expected to sleep on my right side last night.

Whizz-bang-o, did that ever hurt!  The back drain is fatter, and much longer than the front drains were, and that was a real treat.  Then he plucked all the strips of tape off the top incision, also the experience of a lifetime.  A small patch of skin has died, but the rest is very obviously healthy, so no one seems worried.

The radiation swelling has gone down a bit, but is still there.  That's what's causing the majority of the pain.  He couldn't really give me a timing on when the swelling would go away, he says it's real unpredictable.

I also saw my main onc, and we talked about the big picture.  [We all know what THAT's a euphemism for.]  He's much more optimistic than I am.  I think it's because I know more than he does, haha.  As I'd expected, he's not looking at prophylactic measures at this time.  He thinks there's good enough reason to hope for the mastectomy's success, rather than blindly put me thru a bunch of stuff.  We did talk about what kinds of signs to look for if things do go bad [another great euphemism].  And he sent me for a blood test for tumour markers, tho we all know how nearly-useless such tests are.  I'll be doing that every 4 months for now.

The pain pill wore off during all this, and I felt every bump on the road home.  I double dosed and then slept for awhile.  Pain, pain, pain.  I'm not feeling so bad now.

Today my friend Candy is going to take me on a short outing.  Maybe to the bookstore and to the library.  Her husband cooks (!) and they are making me a meatloaf supper w/mashed potatoes, to store for the evening.  So, lots to look forward to.