Good

Y'all! It's Becky, Amy's sister. Amy is doing great! They took her in for her lumpectomy a bit earlier than we expected, and were done a bit faster.

The post-op word was that her sentinel lymph node was clear. The so-called "sentinel node" is the first lymph node that would be reached by cancer cells traveling from a tumor. It's the node that raises the alarm. Sentinel, get it? So if the sentinel node is clear, that means the cancer cells haven't spread to the lymphatic system or haven't taken hold there.

So that is very, very good.

The surgeon also felt confident that he had taken out the entire tumor mass, though the pathologist will have to confirm that the margins are good. That will take a couple of days. But my experience from talking to surgeons is that they are pretty good at sizing up a situation, and if they say they are confident, they have good reason to be.

I am so relieved, I just can't even tell you.

A little while ago, Jason called me and said that Amy was groggy and had decided to spend the night in the hospital, but she wanted to speak to me. Matt and I both put our ears up to my phone. I talked to her and she sounded great. She seemed like she had just woken up from a nap, just normal. She said she had morphine and was okay.

So this news caused me to relax in places that I didn't even know were tense. And then I had two glasses of wine.

If you missed the pre-op photo session, take a look at my post from this afternoon.

So, to sum up: early indications are that the situation turned out as well as we could hope, and that her cancer really was caught at an early stage, earlier than mine. She will certainly have radiation, which is standard for a lumpectomy, but we don't know what, if anything, else.

But this is good, y'all. Thank you for your prayers, kind words, thoughts, vibes, white light (you know who you are). Even if we have never met, I see you. You are real to me, and to Amy. We appreciate you being out there.

Sleep well sister! I think I might call it a night.