3 weeks post-op deserves dinner out!

My post-op follow up appointment with the surgeon today was all good -- incision and wounds healing well, pain well managed (not much of it left, even), ostomy working as expected -- bottom line is there are no concerns about me moving ahead with chemotherapy on whatever date my oncologist and I work out.  She expects I'll go through the full treatment regimen regardless, though at this point I'm not sure what that is.  Originally it was 12 courses of chemotherapy, a 48-hour infusion about every other week, but we'll see if anything has changed given the mass is removed and we're now trying to destroy whatever might be left.  According to the pathology there are some "scattered atypical cells suspicious for carcenoma" on my right lateral pelvic side wall.  So that's what's left. 

The pathology report is quite something.  I don't think I've ever had as strong an urge to google so many words at once as when I read the diagnosis in this report.  And now having googled a bunch, I am maybe only today realizing the havoc this stupid cancer wreaked on my insides: lots of acute/chronic inflammation, abscess, salpingitis, serositis, adhesions, and of course the tumor which "invades through muscularis propria into pericolonic/perirectal tissue and subserosa."  My right ovary was something like four times its normal size and the tissue basically replaced with the "metastatic colonic adenocarcinoma."  Yeah.

And I only got the first three pages -- the remaining ten pages of "gross description" were not provided, which is fine by me, as the one paragraph starting that section on the third page I did get was way  more information than I needed.

The report also has the AJCC (American Joint Committee on Cancer) Classification: at least pT3 N2a M1b

According to info on the American Cancer Society website, it means the following:

T3: The cancer has grown through the muscularis propria and into the outermost layers of the colon or rectum but not through them. It has not reached any nearby organs or tissues.

N2a: Cancer cells are found in 4 to 6 nearby lymph nodes.

M1b: The cancer has spread to more than 1 distant organ or set of distant lymph nodes, or it has spread to distant parts of the peritoneum (the lining of the abdominal cavity).

All that together results in a stage grouping of Stage IVB.  See how much we've learned today??

Since we weren't sure how long the appointment would be and traffic around the Longwood medical area is always crazy, we took our daycare friends up on an offer to pick Connor up and watch him for a bit.  My husband and I took the time we did have to enjoy a dinner out, first time since before I went back into the hospital.  It's the most normal I've felt since the end of July :)  And so I'll end this post with a decent 3-week post-op photo from our date: