Surgery Day --- All Went Well, Real Well

Here is a picture of mom taken while Marcia and I were on out last trip.  Her and dad went out to eat with my Aunt and a few cousins, and someone took this picture of her and posted on Facebook…where I took a copy for the blog.  Today was mom’s surgery day, which I wanted to share with everyone.

Above is a Google map image of the Sutter Roseville Medical Campus.  The outpatient surgery is the white building at the bottom.  But her day started in what they call “Building Two”, which is where they do their  mammograms.  They  placed a wire into the breast exactly where the doctor was to go in to remove the tumor. They call this procedure a Wire-localized lumpectomy.  Thank goodness there was a friendly face there to welcome us….

My niece, mom’s granddaughter, Robin works in the Radiology area, and came out and said hi to us all, and gave mom a big huge hug. We needed to be there by 11:15, which to mom means before 11, and by11:30 they took her in to place the wire. 

By noon she was over at the surgery center for her 1:30 surgical procedure.

By 1:30 she was all prepped, they kicked dad and my sister Sandy out of the room, and we all waited in the waiting room for the procedure to be over. They have a nice system where they give you a card with a private identification number on it, and a display screen shows the update as to what is going on.  It is all color coded…blue means prep time, green means surgery is taking place, orange means they are closing the surgery down, purple means she is in recovery.  By 2 pm Dr. Kim came out and said, “All done…she (mom) said she had a nice sleep and dreamed about Carmel.”
 

By 3 we were pulling onto the freeway for the ten minute ride home.  Called all my brothers, texted my other sister and my kids, called my aunt Florence, and texted my cousin Don.  As soon as we got home I got on mom’s facebook and posted a message to everyone to let them know she was fine, at home, and it all went well.

We are so thankful for the prayers, precious thoughts, and the advancements in the technology which produced todays results.  We all feel very blessed.  All is well…but I am sure mom will be a bit sore tomorrow.


Definition:  Wire-localized lumpectomy/ Segmentectomy/ Segmental mastectomy

In cases where the tumor cannot be felt by the surgeon (not palpable), a radiologist can help by placing a thin wire into the abnormal area to guide the removal of the affected area.  This is generally done several hours before surgery under local anesthesia by the radiologist.  The surgeon then removes the segment of the breast containing the tumor (or “lump”) and some of the normal tissue that surrounds it (called a “margin”).

Electrical Fix, Next Trip Is…

I have showed this picture above before…it is the heart of my electrical problems…this is he place where the Florida Rat had made a nest, but the rat is unrelated to our problem.

    

To recap what I previously posted, this gizmo to the left is the Intellitec Battery Disconnect Relay, while the one on the right is a 12 Volt Continuous Duty Solenoid, which allows for the interaction between the house batteries and the engine battery.

I replaced the solenoid today with this Cole Hersee 12V Insulated SPST Continuous Duty Solenoid that Amazon delivered Thursday.  Temps were still over 100 on Friday, but a comfortable mid-80’s today…so today was a much better day to do the work in.  Here are my steps:

1)  Disconnect Engine Battery.  Got a voltage meter read on it before and after the disconnect, and after.  Battery was reading 12.6 either way.

2)  Disconnect House Batteries.  Got a voltage reading on them combined and separated…one at 12.86, the other at 12.91.  Combined they were at 12.89.

3)  Did a reading of the Solenoid and there was no juice coming to it.  So I disconnected the wires, making a mental note of what goes where…knowing I ALREADY had a picture just in case…and then removed the old Solenoid.

4)  Installed the new Solenoid, hooked up wires, made sure all wires were tight.   Then hooked up the house batteries.  Then hooked up the engine batteries.  Then tested…..AND…..

Ever have one of those days….everything just seems to be going along just fine, and CRASH!   Well, that’s how my day felt when I tested it…and it still did not work.  Engine running, no charge on house batteries.  Engine off, electricty plugged in, no charge to engine battery.  Time to bring in the big guns….HEY ARNY!!!!!

To make a long story shorter….Arny wants me to look for connection problems, ground wires especially.  While I look, I decide to wiggle the various fuses along the right side.  See those ones in the middle of this fuse bank…the ones which look metallic?  Well, I wiggle the one on top and I hear the Solenoid engage with a very loud CLICK  CLICK  CLICK.  I push it in further, it clicks, and run my tests….all works.

So I run over to the nearest Napa store, and I pick up two, a 5 amp and a 10 amp, Circuit Breaker Fuse.  WHY 2?  Because what I take out is a 10 amp, but it calls for a 5 amp.  The one right below it is a 20 amp, but it calls for a 10 amp. 

If you look at the picture above, along the bottom it says 15A Max, and it has a blue fuse in it, which is a 15 amp fuse.  The next one is a bit hidden, but it says 10A Max, but the gold metallic thing says 20A when I take it out.  The Silver one is hidden, but it says 5A Max, and it had a 10 amp in it…it was the loose one, the one which I needed to replace.

Looking again at the replacements you can see that the metal attachment legs have three parts to it.  The “Universal” to them is that you break off the length to fit what you need.  On the one that we replaced, the person who “broke off the legs” was not careful, and it broke off below the mark…making it too short…so it wiggled (vibrated) out real easy.  Hopefully this will end our problem.  And just to be sure….I have a 5 amp and a 10 amp coming in from Amazon as spares, and I saved the 20 amp that I replaced with the 10 amp because there is a 20 amp in this fuse box at the very top…and it is in a 25 amp max location, so it is definitely good.  These Circuit Breaker Fuses act like a fuse in that they will break the circuit if to much of a load (amps) are put on them.  The difference is, with a fuse, you have to replace it.  With a Circuit Breaker Fuse, it will reset itself once it cools down and will allow for the circuit to connect again.

So now we are ready to test it out on our next little trip….which will be to the Santa Cruz, Pinnacles National Park, and PROBABLY Big Sur areas.  I have reservations at Sunset Beach for Monday-Thursday, September 21st-24th.  Then we will go to the less crowded Pinnacles National Park for the weekend, then PROBABLY go to Big Sur for the Monday-Thursday of the following week.  These popular State Parks are busy on the weekends, but you can get into them on the weekdays this time of year.  Pinnacles National Park is just not busy at all…being one of our new National Parks, they will struggle to get people there for awhile…but the plus is that they have ELECTRICITY at many of their RV sites for under $30 per night (half that for seniors with the senior card).  Another draw….they have California Condors there!   These rare birds nearly went extinct (down to around 20 birds), but now boast a population of nearly 500 birds.  As ugly as they might look, I want to get a picture of them.  Also, this time of year is good whale watching time…and we can’t pass up a visit to the Monterey Aquarium, which I have been to a number of times, but Marcia has never seen yet.  We also hope to find time to visit a cousin or two that live in the area.  And why “PROBABLY” with Big Sur?  Well, we might just want to go back to Sunset Beach again…or try one of the other beach camps in the area.

But first thing first…and on Monday, mom has her surgery.  Mucinous Carcinoma represents approximately 1% to 2% of all breast cancers. The main differentiating features are mucus production and cells that are poorly defined. It also has a favorable prognosis in most cases.  This is the type of Breast Cancer mom has.  So of all the breast cancers out there, she has the one which is the better one to have…not that anyone is standing in lines hoping to catch it.  All Breast Cancers are bad…all Cancers are bad…there are just some which are better to have than others.  This is the case with mom’s.  My next post will probably be “post surgery”, so prayers and precious thoughts for mom from here on out would be appreciated.

Slight Reversal – Washington then Oregon

With mom’s breast cancer diagnosis, we have decided to tour Washington then Oregon instead of heading up the Oregon Coast into Washington.  So our plans now are to leave early Sunday evening, go as far as Corning, California, straight through the rest of Northern Cal and most of Oregon on Monday where we would camp just south of Portland, then continue our run up to the Olympia area where we will slow down, pick up highway 101 to Port Angeles where we can take a day trip via the ferry over to Butchart Gardens.  (if you click on the link, it will bring up a small pdf which shows a map and provides some of the history of the gardens).  From there we will follow 101 slowly down the coast into Oregon, with the option of heading on back quickly if the surgery happens quicker than any of us anticipate.

In a dozen days from now mom visits her surgeon, and two days before that she is having a “ct scan” of the area where her cancer was 20 years ago.  Time will tell how this is going to go, until then it is a waiting game and time for prayers.  She is very appreciative of those who have made contact with her through facebook, and I know she reads the comments on our blog too.  Her facebook  page is open to the public, and she will “friend” just about anyone who asks.  (facebook links above are to her page)  Of course, one has to be registered on facebook to really use and view facebook, which is one of my pet peeves about facebook.)

Sandy and Patti are having a little “sister time” up in Reno this weekend, they like to go up there at least once a year and have “spa time”, as they call it.  Not the biggest gamblers in the world…Sandy rarely plays anything over a penny slot, but they both enjoy their time up there now and then, and this time it is just the two of them.  Once they come back Sunday, it will free us up to head on out, and instead of fighting the traffic on Monday to get over to I-5, we will take off Sunday around 4 or 5.   As for the “pink ribbon” in the Reno picture, well, I think I am going to add that to my pictures this trip in memory of my mom…