Port Removal

Wednesday while we were on our cruise, November 14th, TJ had his day in court regarding the divorce and Tess was scheduled for her chemo port removal.

Neither went as hoped. Which was partly why both kids wanted to come home with their kids for a normal old fashioned Thanksgiving and was why mother had a hellava time with the Thanksgiving prayer, rambling all over the place and getting all sloppy and emotional.

TJ’s ruling will come down sometime, hopefully in this lifetime. Probably with the same offer he made at the beginning but now including another $12,000 in lawyer’s fees. Oh well.

Tess went in for an expected 30-minute simple port removal procedure and came out 2-1/2 hours later. I don’t know the details...just that the anesthesia wore off several times, she threw up, yelled, cried and finally fainted. Then she escaped and I’m sure her surgeon went home and had a good stiff drink. The surgeon did tell her that she had been doing these since the 90’s and had never encountered one that difficult.

This was a week after going to Cleveland Clinic main campus for all the presurgery workups, including MRI, blood tests, forms and finally a visit again with Dr. Crowe. Again we sent her on her own thinking this was a simple procedure. But, the MRI showed something in the right breast, so sonograms were ordered and a lot of waiting ensued. They finally concluded that it was just some fibrous tissue and there was no need for alarm or for an early surgery...that’s after Tess went through all the heart stopping panic of thinking Good Grief, is it in the other side now? When all was settled and she had her visit with Dr. Crowe, he commented, “Well, I think this is a no brainer. Let’s get that tissue out of you.” Agreed.

She saw the plastic surgeon on the 19th. This is Dr. Stephen Barnard. Our third man. Remember the first was Shiny Teeth, the second wonderful Dr. Levy and now we have Dr. Barnard. Dr. Levy does not work on main campus, so this is the man recommended to her by Dr. Crowe. Tess said he was very professional and very good. Unlike Shiny Teeth, he had photographs of his work, a lot of knowledge and answers. This is what he does every day and at one of the best hospitals in the world, so we trust she is in the best hands possible. They will send the breast tissue to the lab during the operations and if any cells are abnormal, they will test lymph nodes also.
We do not have any dates yet for all these surgeries and procedures. We do know that the whole process is about 8 months. So we are looking at 2008 as our mop-up year. The worst is now behind us and we just have the finishing up to do. Thank the Lord.