Naked Nostrils No More!

I just realized yesterday that not only are my eyebrows and eyelashes back, but so are my nostril hairs! Huzzah!

That is all.

Carry on.

Fill 'er Up

I used to have chemo cycles to get used to; now I have filling cycles.  On Tuesdays, I go in to the plastic surgeon's office and they pump anywhere from 50-100 cc's of saline into the expander to slowly get it to the right size before they can switch it out for an implant.  This expands not only the aptly named expander, but it also stretches out my pectoral muscle and pushes it further against my chest wall.  This causes a few different things.  It feels like someone is pushing down on my ribcage on that side, so it's hard to take as deep of a breath as I want to.  Also, I feel like I'm back at week one of my physical therapy because the muscle has to get used to it again and I have to re-stretch it to get back to the range of motion that I was at only days before.  

The Tuesday night's sleep is horrid.  I'm terribly uncomfortable and wake up every few hours.  This morning, I decided around 6:30 just to start reading a book instead of trying to get back to sleep.  (I would have gone to meditate, but that room is being occupied by my son and his friends for the last sleep-over of the summer.)  I'll most likely be in bed by 8:30 tonight.  

Oh well.  I know that things will begin to improve today and each day will get better and better...

until Tuesday hits again.

But the good news is that I should only have to endure this cycle 3 or 4 more weeks at the most.  Huzzah!

To Radiate or Not to Radiate, That is the Question

More thinking.  I'm tired of thinking.  More decisions to make.  Do I undergo radiation or not?  Before surgery I was dead set that no matter what, I would do radiation, but once I saw the pathology results, I'm not so sure any more.

Radiation oncologist says yes.  Medical oncologist says it's a grey area and up to me and would understand whichever decision I made - there was a very long discussion about this and it's too much for me to go into right now.  Surgical oncologist says I should be part of another clinical trial where the chances are 50/50 whether I have the treatment or not.  Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks?  Do I do the trial and leave it to chance?

I'm not a big fan of chance.  I'm also not a big fan of making the wrong decision.  I have a little time to come up with an answer, but then that answer could make a huge difference in the long run.

I think I'll just watch The Blues Brothers with my son for a while and not think about it for a little while longer.

I Can Kick and I Can Stretch...

Oh yeah, more good news.  I got my last drain taken out yesterday.  I can finally bend and get up and down out of a chair without wincing.  No more mutant alien baby sticking out of my abdomen under my shirts.  To top it off - no more damn camisole!

Happiness ensues.

I'm not 50, but sometimes I do feel like it.

I am the 15%

I don't think I've mentioned my pathology results yet, have I?  Well, they're good.  :)

Not only did the nodes that were taken out come back completely negative, but the tumors that I had in my breast were virtually gone as well.  Like 95% gone.  Only 4mm of a tumor remained.  And that's just from chemotherapy treatments!

The thing we learned about my kind of breast cancer and chemo is that it usually isn't that effective.  Well, it's effective, but usually 50% as opposed to the 95%.  How often does it happen that my ER+/PR+ kind of cancer react this well to chemotherapy?  About 15% of the time.

That's a lot of percentages, isn't it?  Sorry.

Anyway, it's good news that I thought I'd share.  Carry on.

Down to the Real Nitty Gritty - The Realities of Surgery and After

Okay, folks.  You want to know the stuff that people don't talk about?  The not-so-pleasant stuff, the gross stuff, the technical things that seem to magically happen between the surgery and the completed reconstruction?  Well, here's the post you've been waiting for.  I'll put the icky stuff after the jump so the rest of you can just skip this one if you want to.  Really, if you don't want to be grossed out, don't continue reading.

Summer

It's such a beautiful summer day pic.twitter.com/1d7Sk1MHSB
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) August 16, 2014

This is exactly how I've felt since surgery.  With this dang drain and thick cami that I have to wear to hold it, it's too hot for me to be outside for too long.  I promise, I'll explain all that soon.  Just really haven't had a chance to write a long-winded blog post (which it's going to have to be) lately.

Even Wonder Woman Gets the Blues

Tower of strength.  Inspirational.  Strongest woman I know.  Warrior.  Wonder Woman.

These are terms I've seen or heard used to describe me, but today I feel as though I was anything but.  Today Wonder Woman was sobbing.

I was tired.  Tired from not getting a good night's sleep in weeks, tired of being uncomfortable, tired of my limits, tired of depending on others to do things for me, tired of not being able to pick up and go for a drive or a run just to work shit out in my head which is what I'd usually do when feeling this way.  I was down and then I'd get upset at myself for feeling so down because I knew this was going to happen; I knew there were going to be limitations and discomforts at first and it's such a small price to pay for being healthy in the long run and so much less than what other people have gone through.

But still I lost it.  Damn that shower - that's where it always hits me. I think I've shaken it off by the time I'm done, but then it comes back at the drop of a hat and then who gets stuck dealing with sobbing, angry me?  My poor husband, that's who.  And then, like the wonderful caring man he is, he listened and gave me the same words of wisdom that I give to other people.  "You need to break down every once in a while.  If you didn't, you wouldn't be human."  He reminded me that what I've been going through, though I've been able to go through it without fear and with my head held high, was still pretty damn traumatic and it's bound to catch up to me every once in a while.  All things I know, but things I need to be reminded of from time to time I guess.

I composed myself and headed back out into the daylight of another Sunday.  Emotional overload behind me, time to move on.

Eyebrow Humor

Ya know, I totally love the fact that my eyebrows are starting to grow back.  Maybe sometime in the next couple of months I'll be able to go without applying makeup to them before going out into public.  I really don't like complaining when something good is happening, but why is it that they're growing from the bridge of my nose outward instead of just filling in all the way across at once.

I mean, come on.  Really?

Surgery! Part Deux

Let's see, where did we leave off?  Oh yes, my drifting into unconsciousness.

I should mention I hate being put under anesthesia.  I don't like not being in control or not even knowing what's going on around me.  This is the main reason why I don't drink to excess anymore or do drugs.  Another reason I hate anesthesia is because I hate coming out of it.  I hate the fog, the constant need to remind myself that I need to stay awake so I can get out of that room and go get into my room.  I had such a bad experience after my emergency c-section that I came out shaking so badly that I was afraid to hold my newborn baby.  Thankfully, coming out wasn't too bad, but I did still have to fight off the urge to go back into la-la land.  I think the part that helped with that was that my mouth was as dry as the Christmas turkey in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and I was constantly asking for ice chips.

I vaguely remember my plastic surgeon coming in and saying things went great, they put in the expander and filled it quite a bit and my tissue was great, my skin was great, blah, blah....yeah, it's kind of a blur.  I know he talked more to Chris, and I got the gist that all was good, so I was fine with it.

After a while and a little more lucidity, my surgeon (surgical oncologist - my lead doc through all of this) came in and told me the good news.  That she had taken out what she thought had been two lymph nodes, but it turned out to be four and they all came back negative.  Negative, people!  That means that she just closed that little armpit section back up, didn't take out any other nodes, and I don't have to worry about lymphedema.  Can I get a hallelujah?!

Okay, that works too. 

She was really happy with the way everything turned out and loved the fact that I had young healthy skin to work with as opposed to that of a "75-year-old smoker" and that she'd talk to me more the next day when I wasn't so drugged.  Or, as she put it, "You're always really mellow, but I can tell you're still kinda stoned." Ha!  I love that doc.

So, after what seemed to be hours and hours of ice chip requests, they finally moved me to my room.  The attractive male transportation specialist (I swear, this is what they call them) wheeled me into the elevator and up to the 7th floor of the new wing of the hospital.  Let me stop here for a moment and say that being in an elevator in a bed is a very strange sensation - especially when you're still coming out of a surgical cocktail of meds.  It totally beat the feeling of being in the elevator of the John Hancock Building in Chicago when I was on codeine after my tonsillectomy....but I digress.  

I was wheeled into my room and I was astounded at how freaking huge it was.  I wish I had had the sense to take more pictures of it, but consider the size of your normal hospital room with two beds in it and a curtain separating the two in shades of sterile white and sometimes rose or light wood to lighten things up.  Not this room.  Oh no.  This was off white and deep brown with dark wood.  It had a pull-out sofa, two chairs and a recliner.  There were lots of windows, a great view, and it was mine ALL mine.  No having to listen to complete strangers moan at all hours or have to deal with their need to watch Fox & Friends in the morning.  In fact, I never even turned the TV on the whole time I was there.  (If they had SyFy, that would have been a different story.  I was missing Sharknado 2.)

I visited with the family for a while.  They left around 7 or so.  It had been a much longer day for them than it had been for me.  I was basically just gonna lie there and doze off from time to time anyway.  I did sleep a bit through the night.  You know how they need to wake you every 4 hours or so to take your vitals or give you more meds.  They also decided to take the catheter out at 11 at night.  I was actually sleeping then, dang it all.  Not the most pleasant way in the world to wake up.  Then they had me get up and walk around a bit. Who knew that having your breast tissue and a few lymph nodes taken out would make it so hard for you to get up and walk around.  Sheesh!  I felt like I would have been a great zombie in The Walking Dead.

Okay, moving on to the next day.  I woke up early to the sound of a knock on my door and opened my eyes to find a group of men walking in.  This was the group of residents and students from the plastic surgery team.  They asked if they could take a look at the area formerly known as my left breast.  Okay, that's not how they put it, but still.  Hey, yeah, sure, good morning fellas, go on and take a gander.  They looked, said everything looked great and out they went.  I ordered breakfast and there was another knock on the door.  This time it was a group of residents and students from the surgical oncology team wondering if they could take a look.  Oh for fuck's sake, just take the robe off of me and everyone look at it all day. It's swollen, it's bruised, it's odd, but hey - apparently it's looking wonderful!  Okay, if they say so.

Sometime I'll go into the technical side of what they did, but I don't feel like boring you any more than I already have.  

My surgeon came in around 8:30, looked at the site, went over a few more details from what she was telling me the day before when I was still "stoned", made sure I was eating without nausea and that I was walking around and "voiding" well.  (I love that technical terminology)  Since it was all good, I got the green light to go home.  Yay!  Chris came to pick me up and I was on my way.

Next time I post, I'll tell you all about the fun of life after surgery.

Surgery! The Post You've Been Waiting For (Well, Part I Anyway)

Greetings!  I'm back and lucid and swollen and have tubes sticking out of me (which is all stuff I'm sure you love hearing about), but here I am!  I'm also off of my pain meds, so I think I can write a blog post that actually resembles some sort of functional English.  Here we go!

Surgery day arrived.  I was due to be there at 7:30 am because my surgery was scheduled for 12:25 and that's just the way that hospitals roll I guess.  I was up and moving and properly attired for the occasion.  I followed their instructions to the letter so I would look and smell as terrible as possible.  I showered using their special medicinal soap, no deodorant, put on comfortable clothing (though I was sure to wear my all-important Wonder Woman underwear underneath) and absolutely no makeup allowed.  Seriously, no makeup? Just because I'm being treated for cancer doesn't mean I have to look like crap. Okay, I broke that rule a bit and put on my eyebrows.  Sorry, it had to be done. I knew once I got in and settled, I could just wipe them off and all would be well.  I was ready to go and the menfolk were taking forever, so when Chris finally said it was time to go, I responded the best way I knew how...

And away we went.  By the way, who was driving the car that was taking her to her impending doom surgery? That would be me, thankyouverymuch. Didn't need the hubby falling asleep at the wheel in the wee hours of the Wisconsin morning.  Well, thanks so some sort of accident on the freeway, we got there a little late.  I guess they're used to that.  Anyway, no more than 3 minutes after I checked in, we were taken back to my day surgery room.  The first thing I noticed sitting out on the bed just waiting for me were the obligatory hospital slipper socks, a semi-comfy hospital blanket and a paper hospital gown.  Ugh!  Anybody who has been subjected to these useless uncomfortable things that don't seem to cover what needs to be covered can relate to the disdain that I felt as soon as I noticed it.  The nurse must have noticed the look of disgust on my face when I saw it because she asked, "Have you ever worn one of these with the paws before?" to which I shook my head.  Then she showed me the most miraculous invention I have ever seen in the world of hospital attire:  This thing could be plugged into a temperature control system with a vacuum hose and it could blow in either warm or cold air to make you ever so comfortable.  Wow!  Why don't they have these everywhere?

See the hookup on my hip?  That's where the hose gets plugged in.
I look like a living vacuum bag.

Anyway, once I got all settled into my comfy temperature-controlled ensemble complete with air compression leggings (leg massagers) to prevent clotting, it was time for them to whisk me off to nuclear medicine.  Darn!  I was actually comfy.  I got all unhooked and sat in the wheelchair and off I went. The official hospital transporter took me through the halls of the hospital up to the right department.  (By the way, another great thing about these hospital gowns - your ass doesn't hang out when you move from place to place.  It's a miracle!)

What they were doing to me up in nuclear medicine was called sentinel node mapping.  What they do up there is inject a perfectly harmless radioactive dye into three lymph nodes in my breast.  Okay, that sentence has many things in it that make you do a double-take, doesn't it?  "Perfectly harmless radioactive" anything and inject that anything into my breast.  Uh, yeah.  I'm okay with the whole radioactive thing these days.  Hell, do whatever.  I've been filled with radioactive things and toxic chemicals all year, so bring it on.  The injections into my boob, however.  Let's put it this way, my doctor even warned me that it's not a pleasant feeling.  They stick a needle into my breast right next to the areola not once, not twice, but three stinking times!  They offer you a stress ball to squeeze so, as the doctor put it, "you don't punch me in the face", but I'm not a violent person, so I opted against it.  It hurt.  It wasn't the excruciating pain that I was imagining, but there were some distinct moments of elevated discomfort.


Anyway, they make images of the dye traveling through the lymphatic system the same way that cancer cells would spread and once they find one of those nodes, they mark it so the surgeon can find it faster, and send me back on my way to the comfort of my day surgery room where I'm to wait for an hour and a half or so before heading up to surgery.

Well, that was the plan anyway.  As soon as I got back to my room, the tech (also named Rebecca) popped her head in and said, "Has anyone else talked to you yet?  They're already ready for you in the OR."  Excuse me? They're running ahead of schedule?

I had just enough time to make a quick trip to the restroom before the team of anesthesiologists came in to get my consent to a spinal block (yes please), I signed the paperwork, hugged and kissed my son and hubby goodbye, and they wheeled me into the pre-op room.  I have to say, it was a plus that I didn't have enough time to sit there and get nervous about what was to come.

That pre-op room was complete chaos.  There were numerous patients in there at one time, each with their own team of anesthesiologists running about.  They hooked me up to an IV (Oh, how I hate those) and told me they'd begin by giving me a sedative and before they even completed that sentence, I felt like a fleet of tiny sleep fairies blew their magical dust on me all at once and my whole body relaxed.

Then it was time for them to do the block.  They asked if I was ready and I replied, "Let's do this."  Of course I didn't know that this would not be my favorite part of the process.  There was something my body didn't like and I started sweating and wanted to pass out, but the highly experienced team there knew what it was and fixed it right away.  The head doc even counted down to when it would go away.  Damn, they're good.

Block was in, happy juice pumping, it was time to take me to the operating room.  Once I was in there, I had even more people working around me, all introducing themselves, all wearing identical surgical masks - so there's no way I could tell who the heck was who.  They were moving me from my comfy bed onto the teeny tiny narrow surgical bed, raising my arms, lifting my knees, positioning my shoulders in the right positions, asking me questions that I could barely answer because I was really out of it, talking among themselves about how great things were going so far, but it was just. so. chaotic. I recited mantras in my head, trying to focus on those and not everything going on around me, but I could still feel my anxiety level rising.  That was, until my surgeon, Dr. Kong, walked in and told me that she didn't want them knocking me out completely until she got to see me.  She was the one who had been with me since the beginning.  The one who created the plan.  The one who first put my mind at ease when I visited her back in January and she told me, "We're going to get you through this and it will all be okay."  She reassured me once again, went back to finish dressing, I looked up at the numerous surgical lights above me with an oxygen mask over my face, and that's the last thing I remember.

In my next post, I'll explain (as simply as possible) what the surgery entailed, my posh digs afterward, and the fun of life recovering from a boob transplant.

Random from the Hospital Bed

Had surgery today, now I'm laying in a very large hospital room. Listening to the iv and compression pumps while random things pop in my head. Figured I'd just add things as they pop up.

Why do they make the Apple juice containers look just like the cups for urine samples? Talk about appetizing.

I need to add about 30 people to the list of people who have seen my breasts. Gotta love teaching hospitals.

Isn't sleep and rest conducive to healing? Must they wake you 5 times a night?

Catheters = Not Pleasant. 

Dilaudid = Very Pleasant.

Hot flashes while trapped in a hospital bed are no fun. Can't put my leg out from under the covers to get cool.

Seriously they get the Family Channel, but not SyFy?  How am I supposed to wait another day so I can watch Sharknado 2 on dvr? This is so not fair