It Finally Sinks In

First day of treatment....it finally sinks in. Long day today. Had to have a portacath installed in my upper chest. The port is a small medical device that they can implant under your skin. It has a catheter that goes into your vein and a septum that can be used to inject drugs or draw blood without continuously pricking you with a needle. I had one installed for the purpose of receiving my chemo medicine, which will be hooked up through the port on a continuous pump, 24/7. A nurse came in and showed me what it was and how it works. I was amused to find that it is made of an irridescent hot pink titanium, and I told the nurse so. Her dry response was- it will be under your skin and no one will notice what color it is. But it's larger and heavier than you would think, even though I was told that I have the raciest new model available. Since I would be sedated for the semi-surgical procedure, I was not allowed to drive myself today and my awesome sister-in-law, Toni, came up in the driving rain from Lake Stevens to haul me around to my appointments in Bellevue. She's pretty much the best sister-in-law ever, and I'll be sure to remind my brother often, heh.
The doctor who performed the surgery is named Dr. Frantz Pierre-Jerome. Based on his name alone, I was expecting a tall, blond, blue-eyed man of Germanic descent, but instead he was a quite handsome African-American man with just an interesting name. The nurses referred to him as "PJ" when he wasn't in the room. He performed the surgery without a hitch and they told me that I woke up from the anesthetic and calmly announced, "I'm awake" before they had finished. The nurse asked me if I remembered saying that, and I said, "Nope!" I was a little loopy-dee-loo from the sedation and didn't quite come out of that cloud until later in the evening when it finally wore off. Dr. Pierre-Jerome told me that my oncologist, Dr. Kathryn Crossland, is the doctor of the doctors- so when doctors or their families get cancer, she's the one who treats them. Is that a ringing endorsement or what? It also turns out that my radiation oncologist, Dr. Eric Taylor, knows Winston's dad, who was the head surgeon at Virginina Mason before he retired, and he worked closely with his own dad, Dr. Willis Taylor. I have a great medical team, so I'm staying cautiously optimistic because I'm in good hands, apparently.
I heard from a few good friends today and saw some comments on the blog, so thank you for your well-wishes! I hope you can back for visits and updates. This blog kind of my cancer "diary" so that everyone can stay updated without me or my sister explaining the treatment progress ad nauseum. If I make it through, it will be a nifty little souvenir of my survivor experience. If I don't, then all of you (and Rowan & Spencer) will be able to know and understand exactly what happened to me, unlike us with our mom. Sometimes, I feel sharing this knowledge with people is strange and burdensome and I shouldn't be doing it. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or obligated. But I also feel that I am choosing the right people to tell. I would rather have my friends stand up for me while I'm around and while they still have an opportunity to than to have a whole room of friends at my funeral, you know? Love you all!