Health Beat
Thanks to the many readers who've emailed about my health. A week ago I had surgery. It wasn't as extensive as I'd thought might be necessary, just a larger partial mastectomy than my first one, plus an axillary node dissection, which removed all the lymph nodes under my right arm. I sleep a lot, my arm is sore, and I have a tube coming out of my armpit siphoning lymphatic fluid and (by now only a little) blood into a grenade-size rubber container. But I'm basically OK and, best of all, the pathology report after the surgery indicates that the margins were clear, which suggests that the cancer was fully removed. I should be able to have the drain removed sometime next week. Once I'm healed from the surgery and can lift my right arm above my head, I'll be having radiation every weekday for seven and a half weeks to mop up anything that might be left.