October 16: Six days after surgery

That first night back from the hospital, I'm draining a lot of fluid. It's decided--between the Ks and Will, since I'm basically out of it--that the drains should be emptied before I go to sleep for the night. I sit upright on the daybed that has become my hospital bed, wearing only the binding top and my high-waisted sweats, while Krista takes charge: cleaning the lines, releasing the valves. The blood is dark red and poured into tiny plastic cups, like the kind that come with a NyQuil bottle. Afterwards, they bring me some ginger ale, mini Saltine wafers and an oxycodone. Everyone watches solemnly while I chew and swallow. 

It's like communion, with the wafers and the cups, and I start crying because it does feel holy, to be so loved. 

**

On Tuesday, I get the pathology report from Dr. N. Ninety percent of it is in medicalese, a language I don't speak fluently, and so I skim anxiously, looking for words I know, like I'm picking out proteins from a Swiss menu. (The one time I did this I ended up ordering horse. Horse!) There is a reassurance to medical terminology, to numbers and measurements, like "Both foci located at 12:00 and are 1 cm apart from each other" and "Invasive ductal carcinoma is 14 mm to the inferior margin (A 11)."  Both foci is referring to the two spots of cancer, one that only showed up on my initial mammogram and then had to be confirmed by an MRI when further mammograms, ultrasounds and a biopsy couldn't find it. Sneaky little bugger. I know the word "margins" because everyone has told me that cancer is all about "clear margins" -- clear meaning that they got it all, and only healthy, non-cancerous tissue is left behind. 

My phone pings with a message from Dr. N: a short summary of the long report I'm reading without much success.

It's good news: there's no cancer in my lymph nodes.

This has been the shadow hanging over me since the ultrasound, the worrisome "inflamed" node that we have referred to deferentially, cautiously, the uninvited guest who might still show anyway. And now the shadow has disappeared.

**

I text the good news to my family and a few friends, and let it spread from there. 

H brings me dinner, and C stops by to check a worrisome thing happening with my left JP drain, and K brings champagne, and the four of us end up laughing and telling stories until past my post-surgery bedtime about our all too human bodies. 

So I'm not sure why I can't sleep that night.

It should be, and it is, an absolute relief. I won't know until next week when I meet my oncologist if I'll be headed into chemo, but the news is good. Still, my mind is somehow doubting, my worried mind that is my best friend and worst enemy, that reminds me to get my regular mammogram and then second-guesses every piece of news, looking for the shadow hiding just around the corner.