Thanks for the Mammaries!

Today is Day 4 post-op and I'm finally feeling coherent enough to sit at the computer! (Thank you, Hydrocodone).

Last Thursday was the big day of my double mastectomy. I went to the hospital Wednesday afternoon to have radioactive dye injected into my left breast so that they could find my sentinel lymph nodes for biopsy the next day. The PA who did the procedure was very nice and professional, and explained everything well. He told me that the three injections would "pinch and burn", like a bee sting. OK, I thought, no big deal. I've had a lot of needles lately so this would be no problem. I laid back on the table and he prepped the skin with some antiseptic and then proceeded to INJECT MY BREAST WITH BATTERY ACID. Let me just say that never in my life have I screamed a profanity in a doctor's office (and I've been through some stuff), and as the first needle hit me, I screamed out, "OWWWW!!! F@CK!!!!!" It was indescribably painful, and it didn't stop when the needle came out - it continued to hurt more. Let's just say they pinned me down and got me through the other two injections, but it wasn't pretty. Now I understand why my patients sometimes want to bite me.

Thursday morning, I had to be at the hospital at 9am for an 11:30am surgery time. I kissed Ashlyn goodbye at the breakfast table but Shayla was still happily snoozing when Kevin and I left at about 8am. I started out the day at the hospital in Nuclear Medicine for a scan of my lymph nodes. They were able to successfully locate my sentinel node, which was great. They marked my skin for the surgeon and then moved me to the pre-op waiting area, and I was quickly brought back to a bed in the ward. I changed into a gown and snuggled under the warm blankets the wonderful nurse brought me when she noticed me shivering. She started my IV and then the waiting began. Various people stopped by - my breast surgeon, Dr. Weber, came in to review the plan, and the anesthesiologist came in to introduce herself. Dr. Gannon wouldn't be at the hospital until later to do the reconstruction portion of the surgery at the end. My sister came to the hospital to wait with Kevin during my surgery so she sat with us and helped keep me laughing. I wasn't feeling terribly nervous, just sick of all the waiting and very much wanting things to get underway. At around 11:45am, the anesthesiologist came to bring me to the OR. She put some lovely Versed in my IV and told me I would have no memory of what was happening in a few seconds. I hugged and kissed my husband and sister and as they started to wheel me away, I waved to my boobs and loudly announced, "Thanks for the mammaries!", which is an old joke in our family. The doctor cracked up and then I don't remember anything after that (although apparently I moved myself onto the surgery table - freaky).

I woke up in the recovery suite, and couldn't open my eyes yet but could hear some very serious stuff happening around me - nurses discussing the old lady in the bed next to me that had multiple pelvic fractures and apparently wasn't doing well, and some other complicated-sounding cases. Someone kept telling me to breathe, which seemed weird because I thought I WAS breathing. I guess they'd given me IV Fentanyl, a powerful narcotic pain medication that suppresses your respiratory drive and was making me forget to breathe. At some point I became more coherent and was moved to a double room upstairs, which bummed me out because I wanted Kevin to be able to stay overnight with me. Shortly after they got me settled, Kevin and Jess came in. I immediately asked Kevin if I was able to get the implants put in, which Dr. Gannon had told me was 90% likely to happen. I had my heart set on getting those implants right away. Kevin gave me the very upsetting news that they were unable to fit the implants and so I had tissue expanders placed instead. Dr. Weber had to take some skin around the tumor to feel like she was getting clean margins, and that left too little skin behind to close over the implants. It felt like a huge deal at the time, as it now meant I'd have to go back and forth to the plastic surgeon's office weekly for awhile to get the implants slowly inflated with saline, and the expanders are more uncomfortable, and then of course I'd need a second surgery to have the implants placed later. But now I've realized this isn't a huge deal in the big scheme of things we're going through. Of course the most important thing was to get the cancer taken out completely. Sometimes you just get your hopes up that ONE THING will go the way you want it to during this mess, and it can be so disappointing when that doesn't happen. It also feels lousy to be in the small losing percentage of a situation because it makes you think about being in that small percentage when it comes to other things, like your prognosis. But, we'll get though this reconstruction and it will be fine.

I ate a disgusting cold hamburger from the closing hospital cafeteria that evening and hung out with Kevin and Jess for a couple of hours. My sister asked again if there was a single room opening, and the nurse told us they were just cleaning one, so I was moved over and Kevin, the lucky dog, was able to sleep in an exquisitely uncomfortable chair next to me that night. We had a long series of obscenely beautiful, sweet nurses and often clueless techs taking care of me. I was switched to oral Hydrocodone and antibiotics that evening, and actually slept well except for being awoken every 4 hours for vitals. The next morning, I woke up to my doctors coming in to check on me and explaining how things went. I ate some breakfast, got cleaned up, and got my discharge instructions, and by 11am I was being wheeled down to the lobby. The ride home was a little uncomfortable when we went over bumps, but overall not bad.

I came home and gave Shayla and my parents a huge (gentle) squeeze, but Ashlyn was still at school. I walked directly to the couch to snuggle with my pillow and blanket, and that's mostly where I've been the past four days. A lot of family has stopped by to visit, which has been great. I can get up to do small things, but am mostly just feeling wiped out. I've been able to sleep up in bed, which is great, because I thought I'd have to sleep slightly upright in a recliner for awhile. Today when I woke up the pain felt much better, so I decided to taper off the pain meds and I also took my first glorious shower. I was able to look at the new appearance of my chest without feeling too much angst. I think I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself for surgery, and it really doesn't look too bad, just... flat. And we'll fix that.

My mom and stepdad have been taking awesome care of the girls and me, and the house has been running smoothly despite my inability to do much. Ashlyn and Shayla seem to be handling everything fine so far, I just have to keep reminding them that they have to be gentle to Mommy's "boo-boo chest," and they get a bit upset when I have to be on the couch instead of playing with them or putting them to bed. Kevin feels much better knowing the cancer is out of me. Now we just have to wait for the biopsy report in the next few days to find out what the official size of the tumor was, and if there was any spread to the lymph nodes. Next week is my visit to the oncologist to review all of the latest information and come up with the final chemo plan, which will probably start in 3-4 weeks. I'm scheduled to return to work on May 16th as long as that's not going to be a weekend I'm sick from chemo (my summer will basically alternate between weekends at work, and weekends with chemo - I'm really looking forward to that, haha).

I'm feeling good that this will all be behind us soon. First step to kicking cancer's butt: COMPLETE!

 

The morning after surgery in the hospital. We've got this! 

 

 Kevin and Ashlyn on their way to see "Beauty and    My mom (Gran) snuggling Shayla.
the Beast" on Sunday afternoon.