A day or two after the procedure, when I was getting more of my wits about me and accepting the barbed wire hose down my throat, I started asking for “the picture”.  My nurse told me it was in my chart, but she really felt that my surgeon should be the one to show it to me so she could address any further questions I might have.  What? Me? Questions?!?!  It wasn’t too long after that when Dr. O came into my room and said she had the picture.  She handed me this:

She was happy that it made me laugh.  I love it that my surgeon has a good sense of humor and can communicate so well with me. It really makes all the difference in the world.  At least in my little world, it does.  I had just told her the day before about the “zebracorn” when she saw the stuffed zebra  sitting in the corner of my room – a gift from my co-workers to hold against my abdomen after surgery.  I didn’t expect her to even remember the story, since it was one of those personal quirky things that I thought only mattered to me.

Then, she gave me this one:

Kind of looks like a brain.  A 7cm (approx. 3″) brain  ************************************ (actual size) (on my laptop, but, probably not on a smartphone)

She also had the letter from Clinical Laboratory of the Black Hills to Mayo Medical Laboratories that they sent with whatever it is they send when testing this kind of stuff.  The letter states that the sample is an “……..epithelioid appearing tumor.  I considered an epithelioid GIST; however, the CD117 is only weakly focally positive.  I look forward to your consultation on this case.” My surgeon had also originally suspected a GIST (gastrointestinal stromal tumor) when viewing the CT scan.  Although, she also said the consistency of this particular mass was not similar to other GIST’s she had removed.  She also reminded me that she had previously only seen a few of this type of tumor because they are pretty rare. Upon reading the letter, my thought was that if the CD117 (some scientific thing present in GIST tumors) is even only weakly positive, wouldn’t that mean that it was still “positive”.  And, what does that mean? Part GIST, part zebra, part unicorn?  Then, I put it out of my mind and figured I would just wait for the expert opinion from Mayo.

I have a unicorn tattoo on my shoulder that I got 29 years ago.  I think I may have some stripes added to it.