[DeenaH]

Rich - I live in Norcal, so it was about a 6 hour drive for us. My husband and I drove down the day before and met with Dr. Shuman and Dr. Nagourney. We were both very impressed with both. Especially Dr. Nagourney. He is so intelligent. I am very organized and I have all of my records (Dr's notes, path reports, imaging reports, imaging CD's, etc..) in a binder and I gave that to his assistant as soon as we got there. We must have waited less than 10 minutes before we were called back his office. He had basically memorized my history in that amount of time. He had only seen my most recent scans prior to that day. His offices are very modest. Nothing fancy at all. Old furniture, old building. Very basic. My husband even noticed that his pants were a little too short and had a hole toward the bottom. This man is not doing what he does for money, that is for sure!

As for the surgery, it wasn't fun, of course. But it wasn't that bad either. I have a decent sized scar, but where it is placed, I was already numb from my bilateral mastectomy. I was on Percocet for the first 4 days, then I switched to Darvocet (it has been taken off the market, but I have a bunch left from my mastectomy and I like it alot better than Percocet). My surgery was 1 week ago today, and I am only needing minimal pain meds. I'll probably be down to just Motrin in a few days. I do have some numbness across my ribs on the side the surgery was. I don't know if that feeling will come back or not, but I don't even care. It's a small price to pay if this works. The worst part has been the breathing. It still hurts a bit to take a deep breath, but that is getting easier everyday. I have never been a marathon runner, nor do I want to. Yes, this surgery was solely to get the sample. I know it seems drastic to some, but I just felt in my gut it was the right thing to do for me. I have always tolerated surgery well, but I don't tolerate chemo well. I have had 2 csections, a bilateral mastecomy and sinus surgery. This pain is close to the pain from the csections only it is harder after a csection because you use your abdominal muscles more than your side/back muscles.

I chose to do the surgery down there because Dr. Shuman works with Dr. Nagourney all the time and he knows exactly what he needs for his assay testing. There was also less risk of the sample dying in transit since it just had to go across the street!

I hope that answers your questions