My Mom vs. cancer

My Mom had a double mastectomy on April 30th.

Dax smiled at Mom as we left my parents' house the night before her surgery.

Mom went into recovery after nearly 6 hours of surgery with the oncologist, and the plastic surgeon. She lost both her breasts. The doctors said the surgery went well, and they were pleased... as "well" and "pleased" as losing two breasts can be, I guess.
Dad said Mom was feeling ok (pretty drugged up, to his entertainment), and I could probably come up to the hospital to see her the next day if I wanted (they didn't let me go to the hospital with the baby the day of the surgery - they didn't want him to contract some horrible flesh-eating flu virus or something - but apparently this hospital has all of 6 in-patient hospital rooms, with as many nurses and assistants to take care of the people in them - so it didn't seem to be so germ-infested as they had previously thought it might be). The next day, though, she was very tired, and she said for me to come up on Friday.

I went to visit on Friday, the 2nd - Mom mentioned that they might let her go home that day, but she and I agreed that she'd better stay there, if for nothing else than the "good drugs".

She went home on Saturday, and slept most of the day. My Aunt came into town that night, and helped Dad some. I had started getting a cold Friday, and felt pretty miserable, and didn't want to risk my Mom getting anything right now, so I didn't go down. I called on Sunday morning, and they were having breakfast on the patio (they have a beautiful view) - what a wonderful morning. I talked to everyone for a little bit, and said I'd come this week.

I called yesterday (Monday), hoping to go down there to see them, but Mom had an appointment in the Oncology department - something of an "Orientation" kind of thing, to make her feel more at ease about where she needed to be and where she should go for her chemotherapy sessions... She made morose jokes about asking people there where they got their wigs (so she would know to either GO there, or NOT go there to get hers).

Today, I'm waiting for Anooj to come home, so we can go down there and see her. My Aunt is still here, and she's so much fun. Mom again was making jokes, this time about watching what she ate for dinner tonight - since she'd just recently lost nearly 15 pounds, she wanted to be able to keep it off. Nice one, I have to admit. :)