I’m happy to report that my appointment yesterday with Dr. Sweatman was a great one.\u00a0 He “officially” told me that I had clear margins (from the tumor removal) and the sentinel nodes that were removed were negative for cancer!\u00a0 “Clear margins” (in my unofficial, non-medical explanation) is just another way of saying that enough tissue was removed.\u00a0 Dr. Sweatman not only removed my tumor, but also surrounding tissue, until he felt it was clear of all cancer cells.\u00a0 (The tissue is biopsied for an official report.)\u00a0 Many times, the margins may not be clear, in which case, the surgeon will go back into the body around the tumor site and remove more tissue until clear (i.e. non-cancer) margins (tissue) are found.\u00a0 Thankfully, all was clear with me!\u00a0 Yay!\u00a0 I return to Dr. Sweatman in three weeks, and Dr. Butler, my oncologist, that same week to get the go-ahead for my radiation treatments to begin.\u00a0 (I’ll be able to have radiation treatments closer to my home since they will be every day for\u00a0 6 weeks, so I’ll have to have an appointment with another oncologist at my radiation hospital, too.\u00a0 Hopefully, it will all take place and get going by the end of February.)<\/p>\n
I’m feeling better and better every day, and I think my hair is really growing fast.\u00a0 (Although that makes me even more impatient!) The color is yet to be determined.\u00a0 It still looks much lighter than it was, but I’m thinking it’s just because it’s still very fuzzy.\u00a0 Mel thinks it will be blonde.\u00a0 Maybe he hopes<\/em>.\u00a0 I’m just bummed I didn’t get a blonde wig.\u00a0 That would’ve been fun.\u00a0 I got the darker wig because I just knew my hair would come back in very dark.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 Maybe I’ll still get one for fun while it grows.\u00a0 We still can’t tell if it will be curly or not.\u00a0 The color of my skin is losing that yellowy, pale cancer look about it and the dark circles under my eyes are slowing going away.\u00a0 (Now, it’s just the usual sleep-deprived, tired mommy, wife-of-Mel circles.)\u00a0 I’m looking forward to a great Spring filled with sunshine, energy and lots of fun…and NO wig or hat or scarves or bald head!<\/p>\n MC finally received her progress report this week.\u00a0 Her report lists many skills in different areas of development.\u00a0 Beside each skill, her teacher marks a check (satisfactory) or a minus (improvement needed).\u00a0 Let’s just say that genetically, both of our girls, are par for the course.\u00a0 Mary Clare excels in oral Language Development, especially vocabulary.\u00a0 As far as the Number Development Section, I’ll just add that she had fewer checks than minuses.\u00a0\u00a0 And a “skill”\u00a0 under Social Development most definitely inherited from her father, “Shows Self-Confidence” received a whopping three checks.\u00a0 She did great on most of her skills and we are so very proud of her.\u00a0 It’s amazing to see just how far our tiny half-heart, strong spirited little girl has come.\u00a0 She is creative beyond belief and is so full of life and determination.\u00a0 We never have a dull moment with her around!\u00a0 She has an amazing teacher who is filled with spunk, creativity and movement at all times, so I know MC is having a ball in 4K.\u00a0 If there is anything about our youngest born that we all know, is that she does things her very own way, when and where she chooses.\u00a0 So who knows?\u00a0 She may very well know her multiplication facts and is just holding out on us.\u00a0 (wink)<\/p>\n We have a busy weekend of birthday parties, cheerleading games (maybe) and 100-days-of-school-celebrating!\u00a0 That leaves only 80 more early mornings!\u00a0 We are starting the countdown now!\u00a0 Come on Summer, Prestwood Pool is calling our names!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m happy to report that my appointment yesterday with Dr. Sweatman was a great one.\u00a0 He “officially” told me that I had clear margins (from the tumor removal) and the sentinel nodes that were removed were negative for cancer!\u00a0 “Clear margins” (in my unofficial, non-medical explanation) is just another way of saying that enough tissue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7831"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7834,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions\/7834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}