Surgery was a smashing success, then.
If I were more mobile, I'd be celebrating with some version of a happy dance like these hooligans:
If I were more mobile, I'd be celebrating with some version of a happy dance like these hooligans:
To sum things up:
- They removed ALL traces of cancer (are you happy dancing, at least?)
- Mediport was removed through the incision in my left breast. Meaning: one less cut on my already battered torso (woot!)
- Plastic surgeon was able to go straight to implants, bypassing the expander stage. Meaning: one less surgery down the road (double woot!)
- According to my surgeons, things look beautiful. According to me, things look...a touch macabre? It is funny (and maybe awkward) how they admire their handiwork. "I have to say, I mean wow. It looks beautiful." Um, thank you? I never know how I'm supposed to respond to this. "Thank you" sounds like I'm taking credit for something that's not intrinsically my own. Plus, it makes things rapey as heck. So I just nod and smile in agreement and say, "I'm happy with them." (I am.)
- Today marks nine days post-mastectomy. Oxycodones ingested today: 0. I'd like to credit this to my superwoman level of pain tolerance. But truly, I just want to poop. ??
Circling back to the pain thing. I don't have much to go on here by way of comparison. The only other surgery I've had was my wisdom teeth extraction 13 years ago. I've given birth, but I was team epidural all the way. Other than a few broken fingers and a few stitches on my pinky, I've managed to glide through life unscathed and relatively pain-free. So, at the risk of sounding like a complete baby I gotta say: Sweet sassy molassy, that stuff hurt!!
I'd be doing breast cancer patients the world over a disservice by sugarcoating things. My mastectomy was excruciating. Level 10. This is due, in part, to the fact that my implants had to go behind my chest muscles (to minimize damage from radiation), and my surgery included axillary dissection (armpit lymph node removal). My surgeon wasn't kidding when he said I'd be "uncomfortable" in that area. More like searing, stabbing, stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of pain.
Even so, I only spent one night in the hospital. I probably could've used another day of intravenous Dilaudid, but I've got that thick Eastern European blood coursing through my veins. A fact of which I am neither proud nor ashamed. It's just how it is.
For generations, my mother's side of the family has displayed an outright bizarre affinity for legendary Serbian strongman Peter Zebich, reluctant to so much as flinch in the face of serious pain. Were my grandfather, for instance, in a peculiar chain of hypothetical events, to be shot in the side by a stray bullet, he'd likely shrug halfheartedly and drive himself to work.
So whenever the hospital staff asked for my pain level I never ventured beyond 6 or 7. Which: WHAT?! Because I was in actual real agony. But that blasted Peter Zebich weirdo. I can't shake him. Who am I in the face of decades of stubborn, kooky, pain-immune immigrants??? Mainly, though, I just wanted to go home. Pain level was irrelevant when it came to that goal. So I stuck with safe number six.
By now, my pain is completely under control. It's more like a post-workout muscle ache. I can certainly jive with that.
The drains though. I know I sound like every basic breast cancer patient who ever lived when I say this, but: They. Are. The. Pits.
For those of you unfamiliar with the mastectomy process, when you come to after surgery there are a few new developments you're bound to notice:
1. Pain
2. Pain
3. Drains - a duo (or, in my case, a trio) of thin tubes hanging about your body like red tentacles, each emptying a bloody mixture into a plastic grenade that is safety-pinned to your new, fashion-forward surgical bra. But who cares. No big deal. You just had cancer removed, kid!
I know, I know. The miracle of modern medicine and all that - how can I possibly complain about something that is ultimately assisting my body in its arduous job of healing itself?!? It's just - I look like a lumpy bag lady. Also, I haven't showered in 9+ days, so I'm smelling something like a lumpy bag lady too.
There are loads of breast cancer blogs out there. With loads of post-mastectomy fashion advice. Women are smart. They think of these things. Things like what should I wear to the hospital when I go into labor? What kinds of outfits can I wear with slip-on sneakers? These are the pressing issues I bug my friend Google with late at night with a glass of wine. Thankfully, there are enough honest lady bloggers (or manly men bloggers - I don't discriminate) who can tell me no, I'm sorry, but no. A pear figure just cannot pull off that pencil skirt you've been eyeing, so stop it.
From my research, I managed to retain the advice that warned about how limited my arm movement would be. Hence, the button-down tops that went into my hospital bag. But my brain either failed to register or chose to ignore the bits about drain-fashion. Honestly, I am flabbergasted by these plastic bulbs hanging about my mid-section. I cannot for the life of me imagine any outfit configuration that could satisfactorily camouflage them. I'm quite resigned to the lumpy bag lady look. But I am not happy about it.
Besides, who are these magical mastectomy-fashion bloggers who are attending social functions right after surgery??? Don't they know how bad they're making the rest of us look? I consider myself to be doing remarkably well in terms of recovery. But I can't very well see myself in anything other than sweatpants, doing an activity any more taxing than lounging poolside with an iced tea and at least 600 pillows. I mean, I guess if you had to go back to work? But anything else seems impossible. Impossible and dumb. There are times in life that call for a good break from all the DOING. This is one of them. It is good to just be.
My writing seems to have gone lopsided. Enough about me. I'm boring. How is my heroic counterpart coping with it all? He might tell things differently, so I'll give you the truth: he is as wonderful a caregiver as he is a patient. When I was too weak to open my pill bottles, he was right there to make sure I had all the muscle relaxers I needed. When I struggled to hoist myself into bed, he was there to boost me up, rearranging pillows until I was comfortable.
Now that we've both been on each side of the patient/caregiver equation, I can say without reservation that we make a pretty neat team. There may be zero symmetry to life. It's sloppy. It's uneven. It's unfair. But there are those odd few moments of total cohesion where things just fit. And when they do, you are unspeakably grateful for your other half. Because where would we be without the one person who's willing to help empty our bloody surgical drains? (It was my sister, actually. But you get the idea.)
I'd be doing breast cancer patients the world over a disservice by sugarcoating things. My mastectomy was excruciating. Level 10. This is due, in part, to the fact that my implants had to go behind my chest muscles (to minimize damage from radiation), and my surgery included axillary dissection (armpit lymph node removal). My surgeon wasn't kidding when he said I'd be "uncomfortable" in that area. More like searing, stabbing, stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of pain.
Even so, I only spent one night in the hospital. I probably could've used another day of intravenous Dilaudid, but I've got that thick Eastern European blood coursing through my veins. A fact of which I am neither proud nor ashamed. It's just how it is.
For generations, my mother's side of the family has displayed an outright bizarre affinity for legendary Serbian strongman Peter Zebich, reluctant to so much as flinch in the face of serious pain. Were my grandfather, for instance, in a peculiar chain of hypothetical events, to be shot in the side by a stray bullet, he'd likely shrug halfheartedly and drive himself to work.
So whenever the hospital staff asked for my pain level I never ventured beyond 6 or 7. Which: WHAT?! Because I was in actual real agony. But that blasted Peter Zebich weirdo. I can't shake him. Who am I in the face of decades of stubborn, kooky, pain-immune immigrants??? Mainly, though, I just wanted to go home. Pain level was irrelevant when it came to that goal. So I stuck with safe number six.
By now, my pain is completely under control. It's more like a post-workout muscle ache. I can certainly jive with that.
The drains though. I know I sound like every basic breast cancer patient who ever lived when I say this, but: They. Are. The. Pits.
For those of you unfamiliar with the mastectomy process, when you come to after surgery there are a few new developments you're bound to notice:
1. Pain
2. Pain
3. Drains - a duo (or, in my case, a trio) of thin tubes hanging about your body like red tentacles, each emptying a bloody mixture into a plastic grenade that is safety-pinned to your new, fashion-forward surgical bra. But who cares. No big deal. You just had cancer removed, kid!
I know, I know. The miracle of modern medicine and all that - how can I possibly complain about something that is ultimately assisting my body in its arduous job of healing itself?!? It's just - I look like a lumpy bag lady. Also, I haven't showered in 9+ days, so I'm smelling something like a lumpy bag lady too.
There are loads of breast cancer blogs out there. With loads of post-mastectomy fashion advice. Women are smart. They think of these things. Things like what should I wear to the hospital when I go into labor? What kinds of outfits can I wear with slip-on sneakers? These are the pressing issues I bug my friend Google with late at night with a glass of wine. Thankfully, there are enough honest lady bloggers (or manly men bloggers - I don't discriminate) who can tell me no, I'm sorry, but no. A pear figure just cannot pull off that pencil skirt you've been eyeing, so stop it.
From my research, I managed to retain the advice that warned about how limited my arm movement would be. Hence, the button-down tops that went into my hospital bag. But my brain either failed to register or chose to ignore the bits about drain-fashion. Honestly, I am flabbergasted by these plastic bulbs hanging about my mid-section. I cannot for the life of me imagine any outfit configuration that could satisfactorily camouflage them. I'm quite resigned to the lumpy bag lady look. But I am not happy about it.
Besides, who are these magical mastectomy-fashion bloggers who are attending social functions right after surgery??? Don't they know how bad they're making the rest of us look? I consider myself to be doing remarkably well in terms of recovery. But I can't very well see myself in anything other than sweatpants, doing an activity any more taxing than lounging poolside with an iced tea and at least 600 pillows. I mean, I guess if you had to go back to work? But anything else seems impossible. Impossible and dumb. There are times in life that call for a good break from all the DOING. This is one of them. It is good to just be.
My writing seems to have gone lopsided. Enough about me. I'm boring. How is my heroic counterpart coping with it all? He might tell things differently, so I'll give you the truth: he is as wonderful a caregiver as he is a patient. When I was too weak to open my pill bottles, he was right there to make sure I had all the muscle relaxers I needed. When I struggled to hoist myself into bed, he was there to boost me up, rearranging pillows until I was comfortable.
Now that we've both been on each side of the patient/caregiver equation, I can say without reservation that we make a pretty neat team. There may be zero symmetry to life. It's sloppy. It's uneven. It's unfair. But there are those odd few moments of total cohesion where things just fit. And when they do, you are unspeakably grateful for your other half. Because where would we be without the one person who's willing to help empty our bloody surgical drains? (It was my sister, actually. But you get the idea.)
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