Surgery

This Tuesday is going to be a really big day for me. It's my surgery day to get Jimmy out. With the completion of the surgery it also puts me over the halfway point of my cancer treatment since I already had three chemo cycles, and still have three to go after surgery. It's really amazing to see how far I've come with this. I mean for a large portion of my freshman year of college I had no idea what was causing my arm to hurt, and I hoped it would get better. But nothing did, it just got worse eventually leading me to get it checked on. Soon after came the cancer diagnosis. And now after receiving three months of chemotherapy I'm finally getting what brought me here; my arm fixed. It wasn't the path that I expected to take to get my arm healed, but it's going to be worth it. After I rehab this arm, and get it to full strength after surgery it's going to be amazing. It's going to be the best my arm has felt in a year and a half! My arm is going to help motivate me to keep pushing through these last three months of chemo. Whenever I feel discouraged from now on after this surgery I'm just going to remember how lucky I really am. I mean not only do I get to keep my arm, but I'm going to (hopefully) have a fully functional arm after this procedure. And as long as everything works out I'll be cancer free at the end of my treatment. That day will be the greatest day of my life. 

If you were wondering if this surgery has me stressed out....the answer is yes, but I have been more stressed out before. It's just weird to think that in less than 48 hours I'm going to be knocked out in the operating room having my arm ripped apart. And this will last around 5 hours! But if there's anyone in this world that I trust performing my surgery it's gotta be my surgeon. My surgeon is one of the best in the world at performing these surgeries especially in the extremities. I have complete trust in my surgeon. I guess the only thing that bothers me with the surgery is just the morbidity of it. It's just not normal to have your arm split open with a saw inside of it chopping up your bones, and muscles. Serious complications with anesthesia are very rare, probably more rare than my cancer. And its funny that I say this because the other day I was talking to my brother, and he said that he doesn't like going in the ocean that much because of his fear of sharks and the other animals you don't see down under. I used to be that way, but now after being diagnosed with a rare cancer I feel like the chances of let's just say a shark attack, or complications with anesthesia are lower for me now. I mean what are the chances of being struck by lightning twice right? But getting back to the surgery. I think the worst part of everything will be the recovery, and from what I heard the most pain I will have will be in my hip from the bone graft. I read on this other guy's blog that had the same surgery as me and he felt like his skin was melting off of his hip from the bone graft. Nothing was able to stop the burning sensation. Not even ice. That's not something I'm looking forward to. Hopefully my experience is different from his. I'm going to be hospitalized until Thursday or Friday depending on how I'm doing, and then I get to come home. I can't wait! A lot of these things I am stressed out about I have been keeping to myself, and it was kind of destroying me until yesterday when I had a long talk with my mom about the stress I have been having. To make a long story short I felt so much better after having this talk. Thank you Mom! You're the best!

Now as much as I hate Jimmy. He has been very useful these past few months. There are a few reasons that my treatment regimen has chemo first rather than surgery. One of them is to shrink the tumor to make surgery easier. Another reason is so they can measure how well the chemo works for me. If Jimmy didn't shrink that much, my post surgery chemotherapy would change. So if you were wondering why I didn't just have surgery to start, now you know. I think the only downside to the removal of Jimmy is that I kind of lose the only thing that reassures me that the treatment is working. Now there is nothing really to measure. The only marker to tell whether the treatment is working are the scans. As long as they're clean, and no spreading of the cancer, then I'm good, but my next scan won't be until I finish this treatment. So I will have a little bit of anxiety that will increase as the end of treatment nears. The last thing to mention about Jimmy. There will be no funeral for him. 

Lastly, you readers are probably going to be wondering how my surgery goes. With me being on all of the pain medication, I'm probably not going to be up for this blogging stuff. So I'm going to have my mom write some posts just to get my current status out, and the outcome of the surgery on here. 

Please keep me in your prayers on Tuesday!