In case you were wondering...

My Mom's surgery went wonderfully.  Both the general surgeon and the plastic surgeon were thrilled with how it turned out.  The lymph node biopsy during surgery showed no signs of cancer.  They said it couldn't have gone better.

This morning we got the results from the lymph node biopsy and the tissue removed as part of the mastectomy.  The cancer had been fully contained and there was no spread or cancer in any of the periphery tissues or in the lymph nodes. YAY!  It seriously was the best Christmas present we could have asked for.

I ended up crying my eyes out in the bathroom - tears of sheer joy.  Mom's been a pretty good patient and doing the drain hasn't been all that bad.  Why I thought it would be gooier, I'm not sure, but really it's not bad at all.  It's kind of funny to be in a reverse role with your Mom where you're the one making her breakfast, lunch, helping her get things, helping her in walking down the hall to the bathroom, etc. I think she's getting a little stir crazy, but she had an exciting day out of bed.  She was allowed to sit on the sofa for a few hours, have a nap and repeat.

As irony would have it, I pulled my plantar tendon - while wearing high heels for my holiday party!  I had a nice 2 mile run and 1/2 hour of yoga on Monday morning, but I've been "on duty" the rest of the mornings.  I'll be headed back home sometime on Saturday, so let's hope to get back in the swing of my runs on Sunday. It doesn't seem that this off season was meant to be used for getting speedier after all.  I can still do what I can with my time left between now and then, but it's definitely not been the off season I had planned.  Of course, how do you plan for your Mom getting cancer, getting visited by your childhood friend's ghost, straining your calf muscle and then high heels being mean to your plantar tendon?  Not to mention the stress eating... oh well.  Life never does run in a smooth straight line - maybe that's why it's always an adventure!

I've missed the girls and my dear Mr. Darcy.  I look forward to being with them but am really glad I was able to be here to care for my Mom too.  Every day really is a blessing.

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words.  Time to get Mom off to bed!