I went to the doctor today. The good news is that I got this damn binding Ace bandage off my chest. It had rolled and twisted and I was sore from it. The two spots where the drains were put in--my red badges of courage as Bill called them--had been irritating me since day one. Thankfully, they got taken out today, too. I thought the tube was short so when he tugged on it to pull it out I felt it halfway up to my collarbone. I had been looking at Bill and I turned to the doctor and said, "What are you doing?" Poor doc. He showed me the tube. The thing was really long, a good six inches, probably more. It wasn't painful but was discomforting for a few minutes.

Then I tried to pin the doctor down on what stage of cancer I have. But he wouldn't say. He said the pathology report from the surgery wasn't completed yet and when that was then we'd know all the details. All he could say was that it was advanced since he had to take out all the lymph nodes. The 'advanced' part about this cancer was what bugged me, was what weighed heavy on my mind. Bill asked how big the lump was and the doctor made a configuration with his finger and thumb and said, "Golf ball size." I asked how long it would take for it to grow that size and he said it would take several years. That guess probably came to him because it was so into my lymph nodes.

So, it all hit me hard again and I've been weepy today. That's where the "I'm tired of it" feeling has come from. I'm tired of wondering how much more do I have and if I don't have any right now when will it come back. And I am mad at myself today for not getting a mammogram sooner. Yes, it's true that sometimes a mammogram can't detect a lump but that's if they are small. Also, if it was a fast growing tumor then it might not have showed up in last year's mammogram anyway. But I keep going back to the fact that it was in my lymph nodes, too. My regular doctor did a breast exam within the last year and she didn't feel it. It was in a spot that wasn't easy to feel.