pretty painful............

I'll be honest and admit that this is the most painful experience I've ever had physically. My surgery went well thursday, they did find one positive node out of the three he checked right then and took out 15-20 more nodes and sent them to pathology that we'll find out about in a week or so.

Hopefully they are negative as well, but regardless they are OUT of my body! If they are negative then I probably won't need radiation. I will still need chemotherapy. We are waiting for the results to determine what stage and type of cancer it is to better know the treatment plan.

The first twenty four hours in the hospital were just awful. I couldn't get my pain under control. Everytime the nurse asked me what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10, my answer always seemed to be 9-10 consistently. So they let me stay one more night. I couldn't even move my left arm at all on thursday, not until sometime on friday. This isn't even the arm they took the nodes from. I can move it just fine now, but my thumb is still numb.

I have only been able to take very short breaths, any deeper ones and it hurts too bad. But this is improving. Thursday, pretty much without break, it felt as if an elephant was sitting on my chest, or that my chest was on fire, or that all of my ribs were broken.

This too has gotten better, I think the elephant has now wandered off :). Now it just feels like the other when I try to get out of bed and move around. But like right now James has me propped up with pillows in a lazy boy and I'm pretty comfortable, IF I sit still. :) I don't mention this for sympathy, but rather so that maybe you'd know to pray specifically how to pray for pain control.

My dad came to the hospital on friday and my mom stayed and helped with my kids and I am so thankful. She's taken great care of them as always.

They have been a big help at home as well. My dad sat with me and fed me a meal the other day. My sister came to my house and that was very encouraging too. My dear friend Carrie came to the hospital from Charleston all day friday and saturday morning helped me in and out of bed and with whatever I needed and I am so grateful for her friendship! love you girl! I was told many people came to sit with my family in the waiting room, thank so much..........

well, we press on. I have to remember that this too is temporary and it shall pass.....I'm grateful we apparently caught this early. thank you for praying for us.

Please pray for strength for James to juggle all he needs to these days.........

holli

Jean Hamilton gave me this verse right before surgery. James and I wrote it on our hands before going into surgery.

psalm 147:5.