I'm Coming for you Cancer!

Twas the night before surgery and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except for me and the mouse;

My bags are all packed and the food made with care -  in hopes my new body soon will be here;

The children are nestled all snug in their beds;

While insomniac vibes dance through my head;

I decided to pull an all-nighter since I have to be at Huntsman at 6 a.m. and so I’m looking forward to taking a very long nap since surgery will be 8-9 hours ;). I get to be the first and only surgery in the room for tomorrow. My first surgeon will work tediously to take out every last bit of breast tissue and test a few lymph nodes to ensure there is no cancer spreading. Which, thankfully is extremely doubtful, since technically I am stage 0. 

Then the plastic surgeon and another doctor will flip me over to cut a nice slice of my right butt cheek out to make a new breast. Nice side benefit - I get a bit of a butt lift like I did on the left side 11 years ago. It will be nice to match :). 

They will then flip me over again and connect blood vessels from my butt to my breast area so that the tissue will have a blood supply and live. This surgery is rare but it has a very high success rate (there is a 3-5% fail rate), which means the tissue doesn’t survive. For this reason, I will be in ICU for 24 hours so that they can watch me closely and keep the room super warm - yikes, not a fun thing since I also cannot eat or drink until Tuesday, just in case they need to do another surgery. 

My sweet husband is going to be staying overnight with me this time - I was thrilled to find out that he is allowed to do this at Huntsman, even in the ICU. I know it will be a sleepless night for both of us, but it is so comforting to know that he will be there. I feel like I have an army of people praying and supporting me through this and I am so touched and thankful. 

I have talked briefly with my kids before today about my surgery but tonight at dinner, we prepped them for the week since I’ll be at the hospital until Thursday or Friday. We had some special moments and I was able to receive a priesthood blessing from my dad and husband. What an incredible thing to have the powers of Heaven brought down to bring me comfort and guide the hands that are helping me. 

Thanks for reading, I love knowing that people care enough to read!