Echo + post-op visit

Not much to report from today's appointments. I had my echo this morning and it was pretty much exactly the same thing as the one I had in pre-op last week. My heart is still doing fine. This afternoon I had an appointment with Dr Bahmanyar, the surgeon. He said my neck looked good. He took the steri-strips off and now I have goo all over my neck. The scar is pretty tame and shouldn't be too visible once it heals completely. So much for wanting a killer scar to look tough! We also talked a bit about my port surgery. He made it sound really simple (I know it's not as easy as he said), but then went into great detail about the risks of the surgery: collapsed lung, infection, my body rejecting the port, causing a clot in my vein and swelling up my arm. I know he has to go through that, but it's no fun when the doctor is way to serious. I don't know if he's ever laughed about anything. He seems to be a good surgeon, but he could really lighten up a bit.

Other than that, I've been feeling a little better today. My fever has been almost non-existent today, so that's nice. I also haven't had any really bad cough attacks so far today, so that's pleasant. I've even been pretty hungry, which would be great, except that I'm allowed to eat approximately 4 things today in prep for my PET scan tomorrow. I was told I could get plain meat or tofu, oil/butter, and "non-starchy vegetables." And nothing to drink but water. As a biologist with a pretty good understanding of botany, "non-starchy vegetables" is just way too vague. OK, potatoes are out, that's easy. Tomatoes and avocado aren't veggies, but fruits, so they don't count. Peas? they're legumes, so I guess they're out. What about broccoli or cauliflower? I would tend to lump them in the starchy group, but then, kale is the exact same plant and kale doesn't seem starchy. Squash? Is squash even a vegetable? Probably too sugary. ugh...it was agony trying to decide on an acceptable veggie!!
As soon as I'm done with the scan tomorrow, I'm going to down a giant cup of juice and some of my sea salt brownies! I finally settled on bok choi for my veggie and I made a yummy dinner (mostly by myself!)...salmon and bok choi cooked in coconut oil and butter. I'm going insane drinking plain water...I'm sure even adding an Emergen-C would be against the rules! It'll be amusing to see what happens when they inject me with glucose tomorrow...especially since bouncing off the walls isn't allowed during a PET scan.

I still don't know what the plan is for the weekend in terms of hospitalization and chemo. I'd really like to avoid being inpatient because I don't want to be around lots of hospital germs, though if we could kill a few birds with one stone (bone marrow biopsy, port surgery and chemo #1) I might consider it. At least in the hospital, I'd have better access to meds while dealing with all that. Still, I'd much rather be sick in the comfort of my own home. I'll try my hardest to keep this updated and let everyone know what's going on. Thanks again for all the good thoughts and prayers being sent my way! We really appreciate it!