Surgery is scheduled

It has been a while since my last post, not much to report as we have just been waiting for Holly to regain her strength so we can move on the the next phase of her treatment, surgery. We pulled our trailer down to Seaside Oregon for a nice little vacation with Holly's siblings and had a nice relaxing time. The only real excitement was a blow out on the trailer on the drive home, no damage done except to the tire. The day after returning from vacation we had an appointment with the surgeon to discuss and schedule Holly's surgery. The meeting went well and we now have the following schedule:
Monday, August 30, Injection of a radioactive tracer to identify lymph nodes associated with tumor area
Tuesday, August 31 at 7:00am
Report to Virgina Mason hospital and have wires placed to identify and guide the surgeon then report to surgery waiting area
Actual surgery to take place where:
1) The port which was used for chemotherapy will be removed,
2) A small incision will be made under the arm and the two or so lymph nodes associated with the tumor area will be removed.
3) The area where the tumor was will be examined and a portion of the area will be removed.
4) Pathology will take place in the operation room on both the removed lymph nodes and tissue removed from the tumor area. If all goes well that will be the end of it and nothing further will need to be done and Holly will be able to go home the same day. If anything is found during the pathology additional lymph nodes and or tissue may need to be removed which will mean an over night stay in the hospital and a longer recovery period.

The optimum outcome would be for nothing to be found, for Holly to be sent home on Tuesday which would mean about a week of recovery. More extensive surgery would result in an over night stay in the hospital, a two to three week recovery period and possibly more surgery down the road. There is currently no reason to expect anything other than the simple surgery so we will keep our fingers crossed for that option.