This has been a VERY Long Day

We left home at 9:30 this morning - a few errands to run and off to Seattle to my appointments with my surgeon at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance office and then over to the U of W hospital surgical pavilion to have the pre-op appointment with the anestheologists - boy now, those folks are THOROUGH! EKG, more blood work, chest X-ray, and alot of concern about my swollen ankles. It took quite a bit of talking to convince them that my ankles have been swelling for years now, and if I'd get more exercise, they probably wouldn't swell up so much, and as long as I don't get within a mile of any food that has MSG in it, etc. etc.

Dr. Heidi Gray, a gynecological oncologist, is my surgeon. Man, I think I could be old enough to be her mom...but she is really great - and so is her staff.

I think I have talked about uterine cancer several times so far, but this website

http://www.cancerfacts.com/GeneralContent/Uterine/gen_overview.asp?CB=11

has some pretty good information and some good pictures - mine is considered endometrial and slow growing, and as long as it has not penetrated the uterine wall over 50% - I'll have just the surgery, no radiation - there wasn't any talk of chemo at this time at all. Let's hope that is the case and that all those little lymph nodes are okey-dokey.



I'M DONATING MY UTERUS TO SCIENCE. The SCCA has apparently partnered up with a tissue bank that provides tissue for research and teaching. Seemed like a good idea - they do not know what causes uterine cancer - so if I can help another woman out - works for me.

We also made hotel reservations for Sunday night and for the rest of the week for John. Hopefully he won't have to stay the entire time. I've been trying to convince him to go down to the Bonsai Garden at Weyerhauser to take a break from being in the hospital with me. We'll see what he decides to do.

Our one big disappointment today came at the end of the day - we had planned to have dinner with the "daughter of our hearts" , Jordin & her husband Tom. (Jordin will be updating my blog for me while I am in the hospital - thank you Jordin) but traffic and late appointments kept us from getting over to meet them in Bellevue. We were both very disappointed - but she will come to see us next week.

Seemed like there was just a lot to say today - hope I haven't bored you to tears - I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures of our place * this is the entrance to our driveway and what I get to see each time I come home.