Greetings folks!
A few notes on this week. Ade will be having surgery on Wednesday, Nov 7th at 10:45am. She will check in at 8:45 and go through all the anesthesia hoopla, which as you can imagine she is just thrilled about. The surgery window that they have scheduled for her extends to 4:15..yes, 5 ½ hours later is when that window closes.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Blegh. Suuuuuuck. That is such a long time. However…they need that long to do the surgery that is now different per our request. After a lot of prayer and wrestling and talking and crying and laughing and whatever, we have decided that a bilateral mastectomy is the best option. So, needless to say that takes a while longer than a unilateral. We decided that because of a few major things; one, in someone this young who has cancer, we have gotten an overwhelming amount of council in favor of doing a bilateral because cancers in young women tend to be aggressive which in Ade’s case we know is true. We’ve received that council from both women and friends of women who have had breast cancer, as well as from several cancer professionals. Another reason we have decided this is because she has had cancer at such a young age, if she kept the other breast she would be getting an MRI on that breast every sixth months for likely the rest of her life. To make matters even worse, any time they found anything on the MRI that looked even remotely suspicious, they would biopsy it. Our understanding of the professional recommendations we have gotten regarding that decision is that she would get those every 6 months for either the rest of her life or until they found cancer in that remaining breast. She is of course not guaranteed that she would get it in the other breast, but they do all this 6 month checking because its possible since she already got it once and early. We decided that the anxiety and stress of that every 6 months, combined with the potential that she could get it again and have to do this entire thing all over again made the decision for bilateral a fairly easy one. Relatively speaking of course.
So, there is a bright side to all this…she will get reconstructions done on both sides which will take a few months to all settle in and be normal but once that is done she will have 18-year old breasts for the rest of her life.
Now quit laughing. This is serious. Boobies.
ANYWAY…I digress. I need you all to do something for me. Email will not be nearly as easy to do on Wednesday from the hospital and I want to make this information a little easier to access for people who are not on this distribution list. I have created a site for her through Caringbridge, on which I will post updates during the day on surgery to keep you all posted as we get info throughout the day.
This email that you are reading is actual a forward that contains all the info for the caringbridge site. Please read carefully below and go to the site and input your information. All you need to do is put an email address in. (Thanks Katie!)
When you go to the site, you will be prompted to “visit someone” – the keyword for that is “jeydrienne” That will take you to her site on which I will post journal updates through the day on Wednesday.
When you get to her site, it will say Adrienne Justus on the top of it. The second box down is titled “journal” and this is key…under Journal is a link titled “notifications” click that link and a little box will pop up. You will get a notification every time I post a new journal entry, which is how I will update you on her progress. You can get them in 2 ways, via either email or text message. If you select notifications via email, choose to receive them immediately. You can also choose to get notifications via text message, in which case you put in your phone number and you will get them…well, in a text message.
In either case, this is just a notification that I have written a new journal entry and when you get that notification, you can jump over to the caringbridge site to read the message. Both methods give you a link that takes you directly to the journal entry…you just need to decide which way works better for you – phone or computer.
There is also a CB app, if you would like to download that to your smartphone or mobile device…how was that for using the lingo!? I should sell phones.
Anyway, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do that at some point before Wednesday, because once Wednesday is here I will NOT be using email to update and let you know of progress. I will resume Thursday or Friday for more comprehensive updates, but during the day it will be via caring bridge only.
A few notes: she is down in Denver right now with the anesthesiology team (try typing that word a few times and see if your fingers don’t start feeling drunk. Stupid word…anestupidology) where she is getting all her body systems checked to make sure her body can handle surgery. They are checking her heart and doing bloodwork and making sure her eyes properly cross and all that stuff. Turns out all you have to do is say the words “heart murmur” and people start freaking out.
Thanks Mama Boyd for going with her today!
We will be going down tomorrow afternoon to get the radioactive dye injected that they will use for the sentinel node biopsy…so that’s fun. Rocky Flats ain’t got nothin’ on my wife after all these shenanigans are over.
She has this grandiose idea that she is going to class tomorrow night, and if she wants to then ok we’ll go. We will probably come back home tomorrow even though class is in Denver about 5 miles away from Anschutz, but we really want to stay in our own bed. We will then leave about 7 on Wednesday morning to get down there for preflight at 8:45.
Prayers:
-For sleep for us, especially her the next 2 nights
-for the many docs and PAs and MAs that will be in charge of her care on Wednesday and the following days and weeks
-for yourselves…no joke…this is rough on everyone, and there are many many people that love her and will be extremely anxious and nervous for a long time
-for surgery; that it would be quick, without hiccups or issues, that is would be seamless and flawless and quick and easy.
Dates:
-The above are really what we are focusing on…there will be others in the immediate weeks following surgery but let’s take it a few days at a time.
Needs
-If you have not received info about meals and you would like that info, please let me know and I will get you what you need.
-Visiting…we don’t know and probably won’t know until Thursday whether she will be in the hospital 1 or 2 nights…we are pushing for 2. We ask that you not come down on Wednesday and the docs probably wouldn’t let you in anyway because she won’t even be in her room until 5-6pm. Thursday and potentially Friday are absolute possibilities, I just ask that you call me first before making the trek down to Denver. My phone number is listed below.
-Financial assistance; details still pending but several of you have offered financial help which we soooooo appreciate. We are looking into getting that run through her parent’s church so that it can be tax deductible for you all. I will let you know as that part develops and we get a plan in place. For those of you who have already given and missed out on the deduction…I’ll buy you a beer.
Y’all are great, we really appreciate you so much. I know I say it every time I write but your support is overwhelming and wonderful and just…wow. I’m not using cheap words here it’s just that I can’t find adequate ones; I really mean it and we both really appreciate it so much.
AGAIN; FOLLOW THE LINKS BELOW AND GET YOURSELF ONTO THE CARING BRIDGE SITE AND GET YOURSELF SIGNED UP FOR EITHER EMAIL OR TEXT NOTIFICATIONS OF JOURNAL ACTIVITY!!!
Much Love,
Jeydrienne
 |
A nonprofit offering many ways to care for each other
|
A CaringBridge site was created to share health news and receive support. Show your support. Visit to keep up to date and leave a message in the guestbook.
Visit online
Find Adrienne’s site at www.caringbridge.org/visit/
Visit on mobile
Find Adrienne’s site at m.caringbridge.org/visit/
CaringBridge is a nonprofit offering many ways for people to care for each other during any type of health event.
Sincerely,
Jeremy
No comments:
Post a Comment