After all the sweating, worrying, waiting and praying we received a call January 13th from the surgeon letting us know they'd obtained clean margins. Annie's office appointment 3 days later brought more good news - no radiation needed. Her stitches were removed but from now on Annie needed to see the Oncologist every 3 months for a checkup starting from the date of her 2nd surgery.
The surgery site was healing nicely. I checked her incision every few days gratified to see and feel the hard ridge of the incision receding nicely. It seemed a bit odd but both ends of the incision were still hard and lumpy. I surmised the reason to be extra dissolving stitches at the ends but didn't know for sure since I'm not a doctor or surgeon.
Meanwhile, Annie seemed to continue to be a bit uncomfortable when lying down on the surgery site although it happened less and less as time passed. My January 30th examination of her incision turned up a stitch protruding from the end of the surgery. We made a special trip to emergency to have it removed and were told if any more came up we could cut them ourselves.
So Annie continued on the path to a full recovery. For the first time Artie and I felt she had a good shot at a full recovery and we had an opportunity to have Annie in our lives for a few more years at least. Dare I hope I could consider my sweet Annie a cancer survivor? I toyed with the idea of doing a monthly count of her progress but decided to put that idea on hold until after Buddy's one-year anniversary. Little did we know Annie would face more medical issues.
And my list of takeaways from this experience? The lessons learned will be outlined in my next post.
And my list of takeaways from this experience? The lessons learned will be outlined in my next post.
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