How Could I Forget my Better Half - JIM!

I forgot, among all the surgery reports, to mention Jim's checkup. Jim takes a hormone shot every so often to keep his prostate cancer at bay. There was a report from the medical research last fall that indicated it might be better to take this shot continuously, rather than every so often. Problem is that the shot has side effects that aren't great (heart problems, bone density problems, hot flashes, etc). Jim's doctor  reviewed his case with his peers via their "Tumor Board" monthly meeting (really makes you want to be a part of THAT group, doesn't it????) Their perspective - the known side effects don't seem to be outweighed by the suspected benefits, and so he's continuing on the "every 3-6 months" timing for the hormone shot. EXCEPT the doc did go ahead and give him the shot in February. Doc said he'd rather give it to him now, and likely skip through the summer, since the hot flashes are more inconvenient then. So he's "flashing" now instead in July :) I like to think Jim's handling the hot flashes for the family, since I seem to have escaped that issue - isn't that nice of him! :)

Month after my Half Boob Job....

I've been meaning to post an update, but its been a busy month.

I feel really good, and the surprise fluid tested out to be nothing, so no bad news there. I healed up pretty well from surgery. I have a scar acrss my back, where the surgeon took skin to create a pocket in the front, that goes from under my armpit about halfway across my back. Most of it will be under a bra, guess my string bikini days are over - oh, that's right, they've BEEN over! The worst part was the surgical drains - I had two initially, the first came out after a week, but the second has been hanging around, literally, until today - finally draining little enough that they were able to remove it. Now the incision it left just needs to heal. And I need to "outgrow" my afternoon nap, which has become pretty standard for me since I've been off work. But I can finally sleep at night on the side the drain was on, so I'm pretty excited about that news!

Two weeks after my surgery Amy had foot surgery - repairing an injury from soccer about 9 months ago, she was able to play through the the majority of her college recruiting season with cortisone shots, but it was time to finally get it fixed. She is on crutches and using a scooter for 7 weeks (5 left), so she makes my little drains look pretty wimpy to complain about.

A week after Amy's surgery, Jenny had surgery on her wrist to fix some tendonitis that had been hanging around for a couple years and increasingly bothering her. She thought it best to get it fixed before starting grad school (Physician Assistant program) in a couple of months. Probably a good decision, but made for a long several weeks - everyone was vying for the same couch and TV remote, and we had to keep all the pain meds and antibiotics straight. Hopefully the worst of that is behind us (well, for everyone but Amy who still have several weeks/months of recovery ahead of her)!

Phase 2 of "The Boob Job" will be sometime in May. In the meantime, I'm a little lopsided, but it does feel different, and better, having SOMETHING on that side! I'm glad I decided to try reconstruction again - hoping to get things mostly finished up before we get too deep into the summer.