after I wake up but before the Percoset kicks in

Day two. I had a good night's sleep, waking only one time to take the Percoset and read for a while. Then back to sleep.

Percoset is a good drug for pain relief but it has a few side effects. It makes my brain fuzzy for about 3 of the  4 hours. By the last hour, the pain is creeping back in but my brain feels better.

Funny how my brain will distract me from the cancer shadows by thinking about my fashion look when admitted. By thinking about the Thanksgiving menu and especially the dessert. By thinking about how Percoset makes me itchy and hot. By wanting to review every detail from the last few days. Poor Regis is probably getting tired of telling the same stories because I either can't remember or I can't remember all the details and how it fits with something that came after. Something that came after.

I'm sitting in the office. It's dark and chilly outside and it's dark and chilly inside. I'm drinking coffee and thinking about to think about the real thing. I will get a phone call today or tomorrow. I know this happens to people all the time...they are left poised on the edge of the cliff, waiting for the rest of the news.

This cancer could be a thing that is just sitting there in one spot, not allowing cells to escape and ravage other parts near and far. Or it could be that the tumor has allowed cells to escape and make a run for it to other parts of my body,

Then I would have possibly more surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Adjuvant therapies they call them. All of these words I had no personal relationship with before last week. Now, I can spin off estrogen receptor, progesterone receptors, and markers.

I wish I didn't have a need to know these words. My vocabulary building exercises should come from a good book, not from a booklet handed me at the cancer center. I don't want to see any more drawings of breasts and lymph nodes. I don't want to know about this and that and the next thing. I don't want to think about a future that is unknown.

My surgeon, bless his heart, said his sense (valuable) is that it is early and there is no mad dash to deliver cancer packets to distant locales. I am hoping that all of his years of experience are  guiding him to the right path. No false hopes but no dismal prognosis either.

I took two tabs of Percoset forty minutes ago, hence my thoughts are a bit scrambled.

The nursing care at the Mayo System Hospital in Mankato was superb. They were all very kind and accommodating.

I struggled to remember their names while they were in the room. The primary nurse and the assistant nurse (?) always wrote names on the white board. That helped.

Speaking of the white board, I was remembering that white board at St. Mary's. The primary nurse would makes notes on it like: Teresa walked the hallway today! +++. I really liked the report card and reminded them a few times to jot down my medical milestones. I loved the +++'s and the smiley faces.

I'm going to take my fuzzy brain and go back to bed for a while.