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So the latest. Genghis is gone, girl. The lump has been removed. Yesterday I had my lumpectomy, or “wide local excision” in medical speak. Plus I had one of my lymph nodes under my arm taken out – call a “sentinel node biopsy”. The sentinel node is the gateway to my lymphatic system. If any stray bits of Genghis have broken loose, they can travel round my body via this super-highway and plan themselves elsewhere, growing into “secondary” Genghises or “metasteses”. This is what we most definitely do NOT want. If the sentinel node is clear of cancer, this is good. If not, the doc will have to take out all of the lymph nodes under my arm and see how many of them are affected. So we keep our fingers crossed.

I feel surprisingly nonplussed by the departure of Genghis. I guess I don’t know yet whether it has got into the lymph nodes. So I don’t know if surgery is done. There is also a chance that the doc hasn’t quite cleared it all out so will have to go back in and cut out some more tissue. I will find all this out next week during my follow up appointment. In the meantime I feel like I’m in limbo. What next – another op or on to chemo? Neither is an attractive option. I should be relieved that the first stage is over but really I just want the whole thing to be over – and that will take a good while yet. Still, I’m able to do a bit of work and a bit of reading and that feels like normal me. Let’s focus on that.