If I Keep Beating the Odds, Why Can't I Win the Lottery?

Went in Thursday morning for the port placement and the sentinal node biopsy.  The nurse made me take a pregnancy test which for some reason just pissed me off.  Unless I'm carrying the next messiah into the world, I'm NOT pregnant. "Hospital Rules Honey...." Grrrr. 

Got the IV stuck in my right arm.  Had to draw a purple "X" on my left boob with a marker so that they'd take the sentinal nodes out of the correct side. Lord, that's enough to make you nervous! They won't know unless I mark it for them???

Later Dr. H came in carrying a small lead box.  I asked him what he brought me for lunch.  He said a radioactive shot.  Ouch.  They injected the radioactive dye into my left breast. It stung!  Then I had to wait for two hours for the dye to move to the sentinal nodes before they could operate. There was no television in the room so I read and did puzzles and chatted with mom a bit. Couldn't sleep because it was still morning and I wasn't tired.  Just nervous.  Finally at 12:30, Dr. H was ready for the surgery.  Told my mom I loved her. They gave me the cocktail in my IV and wheeled me into the operating room. Next thing you know, I woke up back in my little room in the surgery center.

Bad News.  There's a really rare chance that the radioactive dye from the shot doesn't work.  Guess who beat the rare chance?  You got it!

That means that they went ahead and took out all of my lymph nodes on the left side...regardless of whether they were cancerous or not.  Apparently they can't tell which are the sentinal nodes without the dye working so they don't know which ones to test.  They just rip them all out.  I think this is the first time I really cried.  I did NOT want my lymph nodes removed if at all possible. To think that it may have been an unnecessary surgery and a lot longer recovery makes me upset.