September 24, 2016

By Amelia Sauter

Hi. It’s Amelia. I’m writing this from Leah’s hospital room where the nurses made me up a comfy bed so I can spend the night. Leah is sleeping quietly. We arrived around 10:30am today and after starting an IV they scooted Leah to the nuclear imaging department to put radioactive dye in her to highlight the sentinel lymph nodes, that is, the guardian lymph nodes that stand between the breast and the lymph pathways into the armpit.

The surgery itself was a relatively short part of a long day, only about 2 1/2 hours. My mom came to be with me while I waited, and we spent most of our time in the “healing garden” outside where I watched the bumble bees landing in the flowers as we talked.

It wasn’t until the surgeon called me after surgery that it occurred to me that we might get something other than good news, even though I knew that was a significant possibility. He immediately started talking about the lymph nodes – the same place the diagnostic doctor started three weeks ago. We took five lymph nodes out, he said. Four were fine. The other has a tiny amount of cancer cells.

I think he offered some reassurances about how a tiny amount is different from a larger amount, but these weren’t the words I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear “Everything went great and the lymph nodes are clear!” The surgery itself went great: a successful tidy mastectomy and a level 1 lymph node dissection with no complications and no damage to the muscle tissue. But all I could think was, I am going to have to tell Leah that she has cancer in her lymph nodes.

Yes, I’m the one who told her an hour and a half later after they wheeled her bed into her room. I’m sure she already knew when she saw my face. The cancer face. We’ve gotten to know that face so well these past few weeks.

Leah says she felt the whole time that the cancer was invasive, and that this is the good news she’s been waiting for, that it’s only in one node and it’s only a tiny amount. She keeps saying it. This is my good news.