I saw the ortho surgeon yesterday. There is still no firm diagnosis in my situation, he lacks faith in the pathology dept, the oncologist is not convinced, etc. So, while I will continue to be treated as if I have metastitized breast cancer, the ortho doctor is pretty sure that I am going to continue on as "NORMAL" following this next surgery and some radiation. He must be some impressed with his own abilities if he thinks he can make ME normal, I have been far off of normal my entire life!!! LOL
He was able to make the surgical options more clear to me and help me to understand why we were choosing one option over another one. With a tumour that is at its point of origin, when they remove it, they would put a rod in for stability and then likely do a bone graph from the bone bank. The bone bank is, essentially, dead bones. They are a foreign substance being introduced into a site that is already upset. He prefers, when possible, and when a patient has a strong prognosis, to avoid doing this. One- because there is a strong chance of the body rejecting the graph, and more surgery being required. Two- there is cementing involved and more cutting and general mucking about.
The oncologist would prefer that the ortho was taking more samples, cutting out more bone, as he would be doing if this was the origin site. But. There is already boney regrowth happening, and the ortho dr does not want to disturb it repeatedly. He is choosing to put a rod in without disturbing the original surgery. he wants to insert the rod up near the shoulder, and tighten it further down, getting closer to my elbow. There is a risk here, that, if there are cancer cells remaining in the arm, he could, inadvertently displace them further down the arm. This is why we will be doing radiation afterwards, inthe hopes of killing off any crap cells.
So, rod goes in, and stitches are made into the rotator cuff. This means NO MOVEMENT of the arm for at least two weeks, and then very limited activity for 6 weeks. He expects that this will all happen before Christmas, so any travel at Christmas is likely to be severely curtailed. I won't be even attempting to drive myself for a few weeks. This whole rotator cuff thing has me freaked a bit, I know so many people that have never been the same once they hurt their rotator cuff, so I will be overcautious with this.
The nurse came in today to remove the picc line from my arm. I need to wait one day with a bandaid on the site, but then can remove it and start to take care of the skin that has just been wrecked where the picc line was, from the various bandaids and adhesives that they have used. The tubing was 34 inches long in case anybody is interested. Wasn't that gross to look at afterwards, though I didn't look while they were doing it. Hopefully the itching will go away soon!
I am emotionally and physically exhausted right now. I thought I would start to feel better now that I am off the antibiotics, but they hang around for a while, and there is a lot of stuff starting to happen for the next surgery. That, and a bit of poor me, and we have one tired mama. Kids are here this weekend. There will be mandatory quiet time, for certain.
