My Tumor Made it to Harvard

Last Monday, I had my surgery to remove the mass/ tumor on my forearm.  The hardest part of the recovery is obeying the doctor's orders of not lifting more than 5 lbs with my left arm for 3 weeks.  Chad went with me while my mom had the kids.  The doctors, nurses, and the hospital in general were wonderful.

Before 

After- This is 7 days post surgery.

Yesterday (Wednesday), I had my follow up appointment.  As I sit in the waiting room of a cancer center, I cant help but be a bit emotional.  I look around at all different types of people- young old, black, white, male, female, crazy, normal- cancer sucks.  I see a couple where the husband goes back and the wife sits in the waiting room just whispering "yes Jesus" every couple minutes.  Her husband comes out about 30 minutes later saying everything looks good and it hasnt come back.  They leave smiling.  I see two women waiting on their friend to get some results- laughing with her keeping spirits high.  I see a daughter sit with her elderly mother and constantly tell her to "shh, you are talking to loud" as her elderly mother confirms that it is the cancer meds that are "messing up her bowels" and the doctor recommended "doubling up on the stool softener."

I think a couple things as I sit...
1- Life is really a snippets of smiles and tears.
2- Hard times really do make the happy times that much better.
3- We are made to do life together.
4- Laughter goes a long way.

Onto the title of this post, as the doctor came in and looked at arm, he confirmed that the pathology report was not cancer.  Praise!  They were able to tell that this tumor began in the lining of a nerve in the nervous system of my arm which is SUPER rare.  They sent the tumor to Harvard Medical School, to a doctor who specializes in this type of tumor, to examine it and give them some feedback on what they were looking at. This doctor actually thanked them for sending him my "excision."  So, technically, I was accepted into Harvard.

Both of arms (again a week after surgery).  You think they had a hard time finding a vein for the iv?  

Basically, this tumor was a soft tissue perineurioma.  If you google that, the only thing that comes up is medical journal articles- no web md, no wikipedia.  So again, super rare.

The news gets even better from this specialist as he states that there was nothing in this tumor that was worrisome for malignancy, local recurrence for this type of lesion is very uncommon, and no further treatment is necessary at this time.  So, my tumor might be famous, who knows?  You may see him/ her/ it in a medical journal.  ha.

My incision is healing but is really tight where they had to pull my skin together after having to take a long strip out of it.  No complaints from me though.  I am literally going to have a permanent reminder every time that I look down at my arm to not sweat the small stuff.

So, All's Good.

All is truly grace.