I've been bad...

Yes, it's Lent and I have been bad. It's been a month and a half since my last addition to this blog. It's not that I haven't had anything to say. It is, in fact, simply because I didn't make the time to write something. What can I say, it's been a little busy or preoccupied or...

I've written before that Doc had a breast cancer diagnosis. After a segmental mastectomy with questionable margins, she and I began talking quite earnestly about the path forward. We had a re-excision scheduled at M.D. Anderson for 4 February, but both of us seemed to think that didn't make a lot of sense, particularly given her family history: her mother and her mother's two sisters all have had it. In light of this information, it seems like the question of cancer was not "if" but "when." Given the extent of DCIS that Doc seemed to have, we felt like the odds were not favorable for this procedure being the end of it. After a lot of talking and thinking and praying, we arrived at a decision: bilateral mastectomy with concomitant reconstruction.

The next question loomed: Stay at M.D. Anderson or bring it home? We interviewed surgeons, one whom I've known since burying his mother-in-law almost 6 years ago, met with a medical oncologist and decided we could have just as good a team as in Houston. No more 7-hour drives!

Surgery happened on 6 February. The surgeons were very pleased and follow-up visits went fine. The last drains were removed on 18 February and everything was looking great. Until the 25th. Doc woke to red, angry skin. We were concerned, but we had an appointment with the surgeon that afternoon. Tuesday, Doc had surgery to debride the area and explant the tissue expanders. New antibiotic course started and Doc's feeling pretty good, in spite of it all. She's a trouper. Stay tuned.