Surgery and the Unphased Tadpole

So the surgery went well, or as well as a surgery can go where the end result is cutting off a piece of my body. My li’l Caleb came through with flying colors! Well of course he did, he did get all bulked up for the event, I mean who has a baby that’s 3 and a half pounds at 28 weeks pregnant? His little heart beat was just as strong after the surgery as it was before and I’m just fine with that and I felt him moving around almost as soon as I got to my room from recovery.

There was no lymph node involvement which is great but the tumor was much bigger than they originally thought and made up of more than one cancer. When we first found the tumor we assumed that it was a reoccurrence however the biopsy showed that the tumor was not hormonally receptive as before and therefore not a reoccurrence. Which was not great news because apparently if it’s not hormonally based it’s more difficult to treat. Anyway, we took out the tumor and I was told that if it had not spread to the lymph nodes that would be that, well not so much. The pathology from the surgery came back and even though there is no node involvement the tumor is bigger than they had expected so big in fact that the size indicates that it should have spread somewhere and it is made of parts that are a reoccurrence and parts that are not. I sure can’t do anything half assed. My surgeon called my oncologist before she came in to talk to me said that whatever hair he had left he was pulling out right then because he had no idea how to proceed. I mean we know I am going to have to have chemo but the question is when and how much. Do we begin chemo while I'm pregnant? Do we take the baby early and then start? Do we wait for me to give birth and then start treatment? I know, chemo while I'm pregnant? But four doctors have told me that it’s perfectly safe, apparently the placenta is a very efficient filter. Besides it’s more like chemo light and then after the baby is born they would begin full doses. So my cancer docs are going to present my case to the tumor board, which (I assume) is a panel of doctors, oncologists and the like, and get some more opinions on what to do. I’ll hopefully know more on Friday when we go see my oncologist.

I was released from the hospital on Wednesday and have been at home recovering, which apparently takes a while because my doc wants me out until January 31st. As if to add insult to injury they had to put drain lines in to make sure that there was no fluid build up inside my chest, because it’s not bad enough that I have no left boob. Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting so I won’t go into more detail. But they were able to take one out on Friday and hopefully they’ll be able to take out the other one on Tuesday, merry Christmas to me. We also went to see the Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist Friday for a sonogram and Caleb is still strong and healthy, the doc says he weighs about 4 pounds now. The hubby and I are so relieved. The tadpole seems to be totally unphased by all of this and I just hope that he will continue to be unphased by whatever else has to happen.