Special Note: I am sharing this on both of my blogs to thank EVERYONE and not miss a blessed Soul!!
I know so many people wonder if their love and prayers really do anything… I promise you, more than you know. As I started to come out of anesthesia yesterday I remembered soooo many Lights, multi-colored lights in my surgical room. I remembered feeling the presence of ET’s, my family from the stars, but also…. others. The energy of the room itself was deep gray (not painted, this was energy, I never seen anything other than light energy in whatever it is I am remembering.) I semi-remember seeing the ET’s and knowing they were there. It was the moment I looked at my facebook on my phone did I fully realize what all those other streams of multi-colored Light was… it was YOU. Your love. It is my only memory from my operation and I will remember it forever. Thank you so much for loving me that much!!
I also have to give a huge shout out to my beloved body. It was so cooperative thru this whole days worth of procedures. This is when you know… you’re in your flow. Even if it is a flow you prefer not be in.
In my morning’s procedure to find out where the closest lymph nodes are and where they drain into, they inject you with a nuclear fluid of some sort. 6-7 needles all around the site (my upper right back.) I have been warned by everyone, this hurts. My doctor was kind enough to prescribe be Ativan to take prior to the procedure, the hospital itself put some sort of numbing goo all around the site. Once in the room to get this party started, everyone warned me, sometimes the numbing doesn’t take and it hurts. With each needle pick the lady counted to 3…. after about the 3rd or 4th time she counted to three, I had to ask her, are you doing something after you count to three? There was zero picking or burning!! They were all happy to hear that and oddly enough gave the credit to the goo. I had to give the credit to the lady with the needles. She poked me in perfect harmony with my body and I thanked her for being so good with those needles!!
She did tell me, some people have to be stuck 10-20 times before they can get a good picture of their lymph nodes… I thanked my body for being so cooperative in this.
Since I was in nuclear medicine, I had to have a talk with the lady who gave me the news the day before about my PET/CT scan being canceled on the 28th due to their inability to reach me by phone. My cell signal had been off for two days in a row, solid. Even my landline was sketchy at best… my cell signal never came back on until 5:30 am on the 28th, the day of my PET scan. When it came back on I had 14 phone messages…. yikes! The first one I listened to was from the hospital saying if we do not talk to you by noon today (which would have been the day before) they are canceling my PET/CT scan! What the hell!!???
Of course, no one is in at 5:30 or even 6am but I called and left three messages anywayz. I had to leave at 6am to get there in time for my 7:30am appointment. I was not about to take a chance they really don’t mean they are going to cancel me when there was an appointment already made.
7am they called me and said yup… they canceled me. The good news is, I was only in Bernilillo (an hour out) by the time she called, near walmart to get my drugs filled. I had to go there anywayz.
Me and the lady from the nuclear med department had a conversation, me in disbelief that an appointment set does not really mean its an appointment set. She apologized 100 times and said that is the policy and agreed with me that it was wrong. No one sent me any mail saying you need to confirm your appointment the day before or you lose an appointment you once thought solid. They never even tried to call me on my landline, a second number I provided. Their policy is, if they leave you a message on an answering machine the consider that contact.
It was the very same lady that was there yesterday and we talked some more, as well as reset my PET scan for Dec 7th at 9:30am. She talked to me about how many patients just don’t show up for their appointments. The medicine or stuff they use for a single treatment is costing the hospital $5 – $10 thousand dollars and is special ordered. If the patient doesn’t show up, the med is wasted and cannot be reused.
I thought about people for a long minute. I cannot for a single second imagine not wanting to know what lays within my body. I love my body and whatever we are going to do together, I want to do it ASAP. But then again, I am not afraid .. at all. Instantly I could feel the collective who has been given the news of cancer…. denial and fear was soooo strong. Not wanting to look at that, deal with that. It was a feeling of turning their own backs on their body’s. Body’s want to be well! The body is as an active participant in this light show called cancer as the mind/ego is. How is it that the ego wins more often than not. FEAR.
The lady was kind enough to put a note in my file saying I was going to show up whether or not they actually talked to me. With my internet provider doing whatever they are doing, I am not a reliable contact on the phone especially as we get into afternoon and evening… forget it.
But I will also write to the policy makers to help them understand that sometimes a phone call is not enough to confirm someones desire to be well. Back it up with a mailer. Maybe they can even put how important these first initial steps are to the body, to the well-being of the person.
It is almost strange to be in a cancer related relationship that begins with trust issues. They don’t trust me to show up but yet, I must trust them to be there for me. I think that is the gray I had seen in my surgical area. Murky really.
After the injected nuclear stuff to find my lymph nodes was done I was off to surgery. Other than this hospitals (UNM Hospital) trust issues with their patients, they really are a very efficiently run hospital with beautiful staff who are really really good at what they do.
As I am getting prepped for surgery the first thing they do is take my blood pressure, the man said how surprised he was that my pressure was perfect (this was not the case when I went to the dentist lol.) I told him I am not scared, I just want to get this done. Then came the IV needle, again, painless and got it done on the first stick. I thanked the man for being so good at what he does.
What is really strange, in the several times they tried to wake me from my anesthesia cloud, man oh man my incision sites hurt like flipping hell. As the anesthesia wore of, it was actually less and less painful. One would have thought it would be the other way around. I have places they poked holes in me. The back of course, in my right breast (sentinel node site or first lymph contact with the cancer cells) to remove a lymph node and in my arm pit (drainage site) to remove a lymph node or two.
And then…. I went Pee!! Holy weirdness batman!! When I wiped, my toilet paper was a beautiful blue. What they hell did they do to my va-jay-jay??? They weren’t supposed to do anything there. When I got off the toilet, the entire water was this beautiful sky blue…. OMG I am now peeing in Technicolor ! This is a kewl perk!! When I asked they said it was from the dye and my body processing it, which is good. Of course it is good… my body and I, we are team players together!!! And radiant in the process lol.
I must give a shout out to my earth angel from Santa Fe, Christine. She rearranged her life to be by my side thru this journey. Good thing too… i was seriously loopy even after I was “alert” after surgery. I couldn’t even walk forget drive! It is funny how strong gravity is. We take gravity for granted, but when you are in the cloud of anesthesia, my ass and my feet felt like they placed lead onto me. I tried to stand up and would plummet back to the chair. Weird!!
She took up the task of letting my family (both my kids and dad, as well as my facebook family) know what was happening every step of the way. She even tied my shoes for me and buttoned my shirt, you talk about loving kindness!!
We got to the hospital at 9:30 in the morning, my surgery itself was 2.5 hours long and then it took me 2 more hours to come out of the anesthesia cloud… we were at the hospital til about 7:30 pm…. sooooo much longer than I expected. My girl was filled with grace! She didn’t complain, had such an attitude of gratitude for what she got to do while waiting for me (watch 2 back to back episodes of her favorite show: CSI Miami. I am grateful the universe provided that for her!!!) She also stayed an extra day with me. I am so grateful!!
By the time I was semi-clear in my head my stomach wanted some serious attention. I was starving!! I was not about to go home and cook, so we looked for the nearest Applebee’s and I treated us to some take home Applebee’s. When the lady brought out our order I had to smile sooooo big when she buckled up our bag of food. It was the cherry on top of a day filled with loving compassion!! She simply said, she needed to make our food safe for the long ride to Jemez. I had to take a picture:
My surgeon said I will have the biopsy results when I come in for my next appointment, which is on the 5th. Phew! Ohhhh and he did say my chest x-ray came back clear!! Hurray!! Of course, x-rays only shows masses not cells emerging… but clear sounds good to me!!
This morning, I really have no pain at all… just sore. My right side is swollen and stiff but not in pain. Thank you dear body and god and you and the team who worked on me and my earth angel and everyone.
Ohhhh, I have a question. As I was in recovery someone told me I got a phone call at the hospital. A female wanting to know how I was. I asked my youngest daughter if it was her…. it wasn’t. Was it one of you? With the Hippa Laws (another asinine law) they cannot tell anyone a thing…
Let me just say, i am so good, so grateful on every level of Being!!
I love each and every one of you soooo much. Thank you for flooding my world with your radiant Loving Energy… I was happy dancing all the way thru even this moment!!
(((((HUGZ)))))
Lisa Gawlas
