To cry, or not to cry?

Ok, before I decide to cry or not, I'll tell you about Monday. I had an appointment with Dr. Holt to get my port removed, and everything went fine. I had gotten myself a little too worked up before hand and was pretty nervous about it, but that was all for nothing! I had read somewhere that having a port removed was comparable to having the drains removed (after mastectomy), and I remember that to be quite painful, so I was scared, just to be honest! Guess what, that statement, at least for me, was sooooo wrong! The whole thing was a piece of cake, lol! They took my back to the procedure room, got me in a not-so-flattering paper top, at least it was pink and that was the only thing it had going for it!! Then it was time to get numbed up, which meant a needle, ugh! Lucky for me, needles have never been an issue, so I was ok! Doc said that would be the worst part, so I decided at that point that this really was no big deal. We, (me, the dr, and his wonderful nurse Donna :)) carried on a conversation pretty much the whole time. We talked about everything from slaughtering hogs to the kinds of music we listen to. I've said it before and will say it again, I love going to their office! They all make feel like a person instead of just another patient! Anyway, back to the port! So he gets in there and sees that it has settled more than usual, he says it may be since it was placed the same time I had my mast. and it just sunk down in the empty space a little more than it would have if it had been put in at another time. But he got it out and stitched me back up! (And what was that smelly stuff that you guys rubbed on it? Smells like cinnamon or something and it made me sick the rest of the day!!) So anyway, I asked to keep the port. I knew my kids would think it was cool and I thought some of you might be interested to see it, too! Here it is...

Pretty neat, huh? As always, it was great seeing the girls at the front desk, Kendra and Geah, love you gals! (Tory, I hate I missed you for the second time, but hope you had a good trip!) Donna, it was great to see you too, you're always so sweet to me!! And as for Dr. Holt, I always have fun giving you a hard time! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!
And, now, for the crying! I had an appointment with a radiologist yesterday. Keep in mind this was just for a consult, and also recall that I was told in the beginning that no radiation would be required. From that you can probably guess what I'm gonna write next. Ok, so we meet this Dr, he's very nice, very informative. Gives me an exam, which I still can't understand getting an exam when I was just suppose to be talking with him, but I guess it's standard procedure. Anywho, when we do get around to the talking, he tells us about the studies he knows of consisting of women with similar statistics to me and that there was a great number of them that done better with chemo PLUS radiation as opposed to those with chemo alone. So guess what, I am now set up to do 33 rounds of radiation! I so did not want to do radiation! But I have to do all that I can to be able to stick around a while, right? So they were able to go ahead and do some of the stuff yesterday, to get me ready for the actual radiation. They made a "cradle" for me to lay in so I will be in the same position every time, it was pretty neat. There was this thing that looked like a trash bag, only blue, and they filled it with some kind of liquid foam stuff, then had me lay on it so it would form to my body then it hardened. I was marked where the beams would go, then tattooed! Yep, left that place with 5 tats! Ok, so they are tiny and look like blackheads, but they are tattoos, none the less, lol! They are gonna call me sometime next week and tell me when to come back to get started. I keep telling myself it's just another obstacle to get through and it will be over soon. It was not too bad, at least the Dr was nice and so was his staff, so that's a plus. I've learned, the hard way, that if you tell yourself one thing and are convinced that that thing will or will not happen, that most of the time the complete opposite will happen! I had already told myself (actually the dr told me) a long time ago that there would be no radiation, so after chemo I would be all done. Then BAM, I have to have it! I think that's what is making it seem so bad. Oh well, there ya go. Merry Christmas to me! I'll let ya know what it's like!