I’m sitting in the waiting room to be checked in for surgery, the most negligent blogger ever. Wait, Amy, didn’t you already have surgery? How did we jump from lung nodule to surgery. Well … it hasn’t been a jump I’m afraid to report. It’s been a couple of months of tests and decisions and waiting. I had the biopsy, I’ll cut to the chase, it was inconclusive, suspicious for cancer. Normally a lung biopsy takes twenty minutes and there aren’t complications. Well, my nodule was so small that it was very difficult to get a sample of. So difficult that it took an hour and a half. Then, because it was on the periphery of my lung the needle ended up puncturing through the other side of my lung and I got a pneumothorax (collapsed lung). Collapsed lungs, believe it or not, do not feel good. I spent the day in the hospital with oxygen being monitored. All’s well that ends well.

I met with my oncologist to discuss the results and our game plan. Because my biopsy was inconclusive, but suspicious, I scheduled an appointment with a thoracic oncology surgeon to discuss the possibility of surgery. Long ago, during my last post surgical follow up visit, I had asked my surgeon when I could have my colostomy reversed. The reply was that once I didn’t need chemo and radiation and could be off treatment for about three months that I could have the surgery to reverse it. So I had this thought. If I need to be off chemo for three months for my lung surgery couldn’t they just double whammy it and do both surgeries? Good news, yes, they could.

I met with a thoracic surgeon and my original surgeon the same day. My hope, strangely enough, was that both surgeons would be agreeable to perform surgery. To cut to the chase, they were both agreeable! And Dr. Reeves, my champion surgeon, was even willing to go after some suspicious lymph nodes that were missed in the first surgery. He also said that even though I have some cancer that wasn’t there after the first surgery he feels better about my prognosis now, nine months after the surgery, than he did immediately after the surgery when I was supposedly cancer free.

It’s been a few weeks. I’ve had a PET scan, which was clear, nothing lit up positive for cancer! I’ve had a repeat colonoscopy, which was also clear, no new tumors or polyps even! That’s a really really big deal!

Here I am, laying on a gurney to go into the OR for another ten hour surgery. I’ve been through the spectrum of emotions but I’m ready to get past this.