Day 170 - Back to the grind post mastectomy

Well, after two weeks off, it's back to the grind. I went back to work today. Bleh. Bleh. Did I mention bleh?

The day went by relatively fast. I just wish it had gone by faster... cause work sucked. It was nice to see everybody, though. I couldn't believe it, my whole team was there at work today. That's a HUGE change to when I was gone. I had high absenteeism. Work was okay. I was on the phones a lot because we are severely short staffed in the realm of supervisors. So I was taking lots of calls. And we had an influx of calls, so my team was really busy. Work was seemless. It was as if I was never ever gone. I will soon be losing my right hand man. She got promoted into a different department, so I am bummed about that.

As for getting back into work and how it feels, felt fine. I got tired at one point because I didn't get much sleep. I managed to stretch my arms while on calls. I didn't want to get too stiff. No one asked me anything about where I was and that was good. I didn't want everybody to be looking at my chest. Interesting that I am back wearing my maternity bras... well, actually it's a nursing bra, but it's really comfortable. I found that wearing just a shirt was sort of "chaffing" my skin and making it very sensitive. I didn't like that feeling.

So tomorrow it's another day of work and then I get a day off for Fourth of July. Hooray. Thursday I have an appointment with my radiation oncologist and then Monday it's a physical therapy session. I really want my left arm to work again. I can get my right arm almost straight up. It's more at the angle of the "hiel Hitler" height. My left arm, due to the cording is much lower than that, but above the 90 degree angle to my body. Again I try to stretch, stretch, stretch.

You know, after reading some of my blog posts... I didn't fully update everyone with my pathology report. So they ended up taking 17 lymph nodes... one of which showed positive for some scant cancer cells. Two other lymph nodes had fibrosis - which means that there was something there, but it was gone and the nodes had been healing itself. In addition, the left breast had a lump measuring .9cm at its longest. Another pathology slide showed that they found DCIS or Ductal Carcinoma In Situ. That means that there was another lump that was forming. It hadn't gotten big enough to break out and become Invasive Ductal Carcinoma or IDC. Basically if you have DCIS, it's a stage 0. But if I had just gotten a lumpectomy, soon I would be back in the operating room getting another lump removed. So thank goodness I said, "Off with the boobs!" (said in the manner of the Queen of Hearts) Other than that everything looked good. I believe that I mentioned that Dr. Naik, the breast surgeon, has no worries about the lymph node in the neck.
Until next time...

P.S. My wonderful friends who gave me the necklace... I never named them... but thanks to Kelli, Brooke and Annie. Love you ladies! Mwah!