Footloose and cancer free.

My pathology report came back clear. Yay for living cancer free for one whole year. So far.

I have an appointment with my oncologist next Monday and he will likely give me a requisition to get another diagnostic mammogram done just to be sure things are still looking good. This seems kind of ass-backward to me - you'd think I would get the mammogram done before I see him. But hey, who am I to question the intelligence of the medical system.

Later today I will go have coffee with the girls at work.

I'm still a bit uncertain of what my employment future looks like. I have a couple of irons in the fire, but they are not heating up as fast as I had originally hoped. My surgeon suggested I be off work for approximately seven weeks after surgery. I'll think I'll go back for 3 days a week on December 1st. While this is only 4 1/2 weeks into recovery, I think I'll be fine. I can get away without lifting if I need to and I have way too much seniority to ever have to sweep and vacuum.

This will mean I only have 2 1/2 weeks left to live footloose. I'm kinda hoping my hubby will blow a couple of shifts and whisk me away to Edmonton for a few days. I could get all my Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop (and have him there to pack everything) PLUS I'd get to go to the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and squeeze in a visit with April and Greg before heading back to the grindstone.

I am pleasantly surprised at how little pain I have had. I take pain killers at most once a day. I have zero pain at the incision site. Any pain I do have seems to be in the bruising about six inches above the incision, which I assume is where they clamped back all my fat. It mighta been a better idea to just cut it off while they had me open.

I do have some pain in my bladder - both when it is full and when I release it. It kinda feels like a knife stab. I'll mention this to Dr Galliford next week when I have a follow-up visit.

I am not a person to balk at sitting around doing nothing, but the "not lifting" is interfering with my lifestyle. I am back to doing most of the cooking and I think nothing of filling the large pasta pot with water and carrying it across the kitchen from the sink to the stove. Or packing the 5lb bag of rice from the pantry room to the kitchen. These are probably things I should be avoiding but they are things I don't really think about until I've done too many and my belly starts to feel like it's contracting in labour.

I haven't ventured outside too many times yet but yesterday I decided I'd make a trip to the library. You know I'm getting cabin fever when I start looking for books - I just don't read anymore. Actually I wasn't looking for reading books, I went in search of watercolour projects. I'm feeling the urge to paint.

I'm thinking I'll do an original work of art for our Christmas cards again this year. However, I learned my lesson last year and I will not be hand painting 84 individual cards for 2009. I will paint one. I will get 84 copies printed.

My trip to the library probably would have been fine except for two things:

1 - A large woman was heading across the parking lot towards the library door the same time as me. She practically ran to get in front of me like there was a prize for the first person to arrive. I, on the other hand, dragged my feet and slowed a bit so she could open the heavy metal door and stand there waiting for me to catch up and go through. She then headed for the elevator door to take her up the four flights to the main floor of our library. My evil mind thought, "Ha! That's why you are so much larger than me. I shall take the stairs."

I arrived four flights up on the main floor completely winded and having a hot flash. I thought I was gonna die. But... I was 20 feet ahead of the large woman emerging from the library elevator.

2 - All the watercolour books are on the top shelf. After my little mini-marathon of stair climbing, I sang hallelujah at the sight of a stool in the aisle of the art books. I grabbed a book off the shelf and pretended to be reading it as I sat on the stool and composed myself and gathered energy enough to reach books down from the top shelf. Do you know how enormous art books are? I think there's a law that in order to qualify as an art book it must weigh more than 12 pounds. Stretching above my head and lifting down these books was more exercise than I should have been participating in. I knew that, but I could not let my venture up the stairs be in vain. I limited myself to 3 books. I couldn't imagine packing more than that to the car. I fully anticipated that once I reached my car I would cry myself to sleep - but I managed to make it all the way home to my bed.

Yes, this is one of the books I brought home.