given that i had basically spent the previous twenty-four hours in bed and/or sleeping, i was uncharacteristically, but not surprisingly, up and awake before 9am on saturday. have you ever tried to get yourself out of bed using zero percent of one half of your upper body? i hadn't either. andy helped me up and out of bed, and then it was time for the morning drainage routine. each drain grenade has a plastic flap attached, and a safety pin runs through it to attach it to my surgical bra, which as you can imagine, is all tremendously attractive. andy's new morning and evening routine consists of unattaching drain #1 from the bra; opening the stopper of the drain; emptying the contents of the plastic drain by squeezing it, releasing the weird blood and lymphatic fluid into a measuring cup; plugging the stopper of the drain while keeping it squeezed (thus providing suction to make the drain work); milking whatever is left in the tubing and forcing the contents down into the drain; reattaching the drain to the bra; then rinse and repeat for drain #2. then he records the amount of fluid from each drain onto separate sheets of paper. good times.

later in the morning, katie stopped by and delivered a slow cooker full of chicken soup, as well as some ready-for-slow-cooking bags of frozen recipes for future meals. we visit for awhile, and then she is on her way to visit family. i take up residence on the couch, gingerly elevating my arm on pillows as we navigate day #1 at home, with the smell of chicken soup in the background. shortly before noon, andy's sister emily came by, as she happened to be in the area that morning. she was happily surprised at how well i was doing, and noted that her nursing skills did not seem necessary during her visit. after emily departed, we had lunch, and i took the opportunity to sit on the couch in front of the tv, watching all of my ridiculous youtube channels for basically the entire afternoon. it was mindless and glorious, and also required very little movement. later on we took a very short walk, for which i am sure i looked fairly disheveled, but it was good to be moving around outside. the evening consisted of us watching several episodes of arrested development.

that was the first full day out of the hospital. most of my time spent at home has been samey samey -- every day is saturday! i am sure specific things have happened, but do you really care WHICH board game we played on sunday (great western trail) as opposed to wednesday (orleans)? probably not. generally speaking, i have been getting plenty of rest, waking up late (10:30am rise and shine? yes, please), trying to do gentle beginner exercises with my left arm as instructed, taking short walks, and spending lots of time on the couch with the tv or my laptop. andy has been puttering around the house doing his own things as well, helping me with weird things i can't do on my own (getting certain dishes down from the cabinet, putting on shirts, preparing meals, doing laundry and dishes).

showering is now a whole elaborate experience which also requires assistance. i was told i could take a shower 24-48 hours after surgery, but not allow the drain sites to get wet, and also, not to allow direct shower spray onto the drain and incision sites. besides being confusing, this did not sound like much of a shower to me, so i don't think that happened until wednesday. it involved my trusty press and seal, tape, lots of maneuvering, and plenty of help from andy. even so, it's going to be awhile until my left armpit gets some deep cleaning, so, sorry to anyone approaching me from that side!

some particular moments from particular days... after looking at the weather forecast early in the week, it seemed like monday was going to be gorgeous, and the next few days not so much. so after andy ran some errands and did some yard work, we headed out to stauf's, a coffeehouse in grandview. there was a severe shortage of tables outside, but we found a bench, got ourselves caffeinated, and enjoyed the weather and the people watching. as someone who has always been an 8-to-5 employee, i am always perplexed at the amount of people out and about at, say, 2pm on a random weekday. what do you do? how is this possible? i don't understand.

sometime during the afternoon on tuesday, i got a call from the dr. h with an update. she said the pathology came back with good news: the tumor at the time of surgery was 3cm (which is still large for a tumor in general, but much smaller than my original size of 9cm!), so the chemotherapy had definitely done its job in shrinking the tumor. she said that the margins were clear, which means that it appears they did not leave any of that tumor behind. she also said that they ended up removing six axillary lymph nodes, and only two tested positive for any cancer -- only two tested positive during the biopsies in august, so it appears there was no spread. from what i can tell, it seems unlikely that i will need more chemo, but likely that i will receive radiation (it seems like that has always been the plan for me). however, the whole phone call lasted perhaps one minute, so i will get more details next week on any other information regarding pathology and/or future steps from both doctors.

on wednesday, andy's mom sent a meal of lasagna, garlic bread, and salad, delivered by his sister, sarah. his mom stayed behind on account of possibly? maybe? starting to come down with something? even though it was probably nothing. but you never know, because CORONAVIRUS 2020. anyway, we all had a nice lunch and sarah hung out for the afternoon, which was lovely.

thursday was relatively exciting, for it marked two days in a row in which each of my grenades drained 30ml or less of fluid. i called the doctor's office and we were scheduled to come in at 2:30pm to have the drains removed that day. it was a very strange experience. it didn't hurt, exactly, but the feeling of having two tubes pulled out of your body (about six inches worth, on the inside) is not one i would necessarily like to reminisce about. not painful, but super weird, sort of giving my stomach the flippy-floppies. i felt much less mutant-like with the tubing and grenades no longer hanging out of my body.

i noted earlier that coronavirus is currently taking over the world. i find it convenient that my surgery and recovery time has forced us into accidental self-isolation just as everyone loses their minds over toilet paper. however, we were interested in what it really looked like Out In The Real World, so friday evening we ventured out on an anthropological excursion to kroger. we decided beforehand that if the lines were crazy, we would just walk around, take it all in, and gawk. as it turned out, not a whole lot of activity on a friday night, so we picked up a few things like normal people. among the things that people in grandview reduced to empty or almost empty shelves: broccoli, bananas, apples (aside from granny smith, which amuses me), bread (aside from gluten-free loaves and a variety of buns), milk, eggs, pasta, pasta sauce, frozen vegetables, toilet paper (obvs). it was interesting to say the least. but we got some fresh fruits and veggies, along with other usual items. to be honest, i am at the point where i could have used more toilet paper, but we've got enough to manage.

today has been pretty chill. i didn't wake up until 11am(!), had some coffee, and decided it was time for a shower for the first time without the drains. still an adventure, mostly involving one of the old drain entries not quite getting scabbed over, so that was gross, but we made it happen. i also managed to put on a non-button-front, but very stretchy t-shirt, so, progress? since then it has been lunch and watching the large, fluffy snowflakes fall outside. andy has been busy running the dishwasher, doing laundry, and washing pots and pans. the washer recently ended its cycle and notified us with persistent beeping, while andy was in the middle of other kitchen cleaning activities, leading him to exclaim, "i'm only one man!" (spoiler alert: this also happened when the dryer began beeping).

all activities in the outside world seem to have been cancelled, and i have to say we're pretty prepared to do not much of anything, given our past week or so. i am still healing, so still doing a lot of resting. i am still not supposed to be doing any lifting or pushing or pulling with my left arm, but otherwise trying to resume normal activities and doing light exercises for it at home. i'm sort of numb and sore, but not in any pain, really. i meet with the surgeon on wednesday and the medical oncologist on thursday... i imagine there will soon be a radiation oncologist in my future. so far, things seem to be going according to plan for Week 29 (not the life plan i envisioned, but the plan in place since august, anyway). let's do this.