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Hi Everyone
Ken and I (and the dogs) are on our way to Whistler, from Vancouver. I met with the surgeon today and the surgery is planned for next Wednesday. I feel so much better that I have waited to have the surgery with this doctor. He even showed me a little video that he has on his phone (that he uses when he lectures) on how the implant is removed without anything being left behind.
He specializes in reconstructive surgery after mastectomy. He seems to think it will just look fine once he is done. The first surgeon basically told me how horrible it was going to look and STRONGLY encouraged me to just replace the implant with another one.
I am so glad I decided not to go with him.

I am also booked to be starting back in the hyperbaric unit, (the new one that will be opening at Riverbend hospital) in November. I will be one of the first patients in this new unit. This unit goes up to 3 atmospheres (however I will be treated with 2.4 atmospheres.
I finally heard back from my oncologist about my PET scan and he said that the increased take up of the dye in the base of the tongue was most likely because I was talking between when the injection was given. Active muscles take up the dye in greater concentrations. Can you imagine me talking too much?????
The tech at the PET scan place was telling me that that is why whey have this little room that you basically sit in the dark after the injection. He said he had a guy once that brought in a computer game and sure enough all his arm muscles “lit up” on the scan.

I have had an incredibly exciting week for an extremely “unexpected” reason.
I got a call from the physician recruiter from Peace Health to ask if I would be interested in a position as hospitalist at the old Sacred Heart hospital (which is now called the University District hospital)
I was totally shocked, and said that I never would have expected that they would ask me to work, being as Peace Health has a bylaw against hiring non board certified docs.

Well I guess Peace Health ( which is a large non profit organization that owns several facilities) They have two “campuses” in Eugene, one at Riverbend (RB) which is the new hospital and the other at the old Sacred Heart (University District)(UD).

All the hospitalists rotate through both facilities, but since the unit at UD is only about 35 beds and Riverbend (RB) is much larger, none of them spend much time over there at UD. The unit is mostly geriatrics, with a high percentage of Alzheimers patients and all the unique problems that they get.
They have been thinking of having one or two physicians JUST work over at UD They noted on my resume the 9 years I cared for all the patients in the locked Alzheimers unit at Heritage Place, combined with the 3 years I worked as a hospitalist in Bandon and thought I would be perfect for the job. So I spent all day Monday being “interviewed”, and then a dinner to meet me and Ken at one of the doctors house.
It is not totally straight forward but they have found out that there is in certain circumstances a way around the bylaws if a physician came along with the kind of experience I seem to have.
They are also short of physicians in the hospitalist group, as a few of them have recently left. I am pretty excited about this as from all I can see this job could be my “dream job”, the one I left in Bandon, without the politics.........

If it does not work out, that will be OK, I STILL have my 73 tomato plants......

It was extremely hard to leave my garden, and in my “notes to self” book that I need to write about this years successes and failures, a few paragraphs will definately be devoted to “when NOT to leave the garden”.
I would say that the first 2 weeks of September would qualify. I have canned 9 pints of tomato sauce, 5 pints of dilly beans, and 5 of dill pickles. We have dried many bags of sliced apple and one bag of dried mushroom. I picked every tomato that had even the faintest red colour to it, to bring with us on this trip.
It may not have been the greatest time for surgery, but
Ken and I have this idea that perhaps getting this done AND the hyperbarics in November, perhaps by Christmas I will be perfectly healthy.

Maybe I can start running again then
Love
Janet
jankenb @ gmail.com .