praying it's benign . . .

. . . but testing the lymph nodes that were removed for lymphoma, leukemia, and metastatic cancer. Fingers crossed it's a virus or infection that was missed when they did all of those blood panels on me the week before last.

I was told that it will take anywhere from 5-7 days for "final" results. Apparently my tissue samples have to be stained, which takes 48 hrs before they will even start viewing and culturing them. Different diseases take differing periods of time to culture and/or evaluate. In addition, because I had surgery at a local hospital, and not in NYC, they have to FedEx a few of my tissue slivers to another lab - which will add another day or so onto the wait time. My doctor explained that with the stains, the cultures, the FedEx'ing, and the faxing of results, it could be a week. However, if it's "very" obvious that we're in the clear and things are benign, or if it's very obvious right away, what's wrong, I may, (may), know something in as little as 3 days. However, we won't have a detailed analysis at that point - just a rough idea.

Alright, I know this isn't short and sweet like I had hoped - but my fingers have really taken charge on this keyboard of mine, and I have a lot to get off my chest tonight.

I'm feeling nauseous from the general anesthesia, sore from my incision(s), and a bit emotional.

When my surgeon came to see me in the pre-op room this morning to mark me with a surgical marker, he felt up my neck, and told me there was a good possibility he would have to operate in 2 locations . . . as there are a few new, prominent, "lumps" on the back of my neck.

Sooo I woke up with 2 incisions - one across my neck, and another across my collar bone/shoulder region. Both are at least 3 inches long.m They aren't pretty, and I'm not happy. I was expecting much smaller scars. The surgical oncologist removed multiple lumps/lymph nodes from each location.

As I'm home from the hospital now, the plan is still for me to go down to Columbia tomorrow for a late afternoon appointment with the arrhythmia specialist. My mom is going to drive us into NYC. I hope to learn more about what steps we can take (EP study, ablation, etc.) to get me off of heart meds, or off of "most" of my heart meds, for good. I think tomorrow will be a positive experience, because I embrace any procedure which will allow me to get off of heart meds and move forward with my life!

I'll let you know in a day or so, how my heart appointment tomorrow goes, and promise to update as soon as we hear from the oncologist regarding my biopsy results.

In closing, below are a couple pictures from today. The first, is of me shortly after I arrived at the hospital. The second, is a picture Dave took of my new battle wounds.