I made it through surgery and I’m home and recuperating. Hope you didn’t bet otherwise.
Had surgery on Friday and it went well. Tumor was large (will get the pathology report on Wednesday). 10 days ago it was measuring about 2 cm, then 4 cm, then 6 – 7cm, in the surgery it was indenting my chest wall. Everyone at the Univ of Michigan Hospital was wonderful to me. Had to stay overnight in the observation unit because I was pregnant. Mastectomy’s are usually outpatient procedures but they needed labor and delivery close by just in case. Good thing too because my uterus got irritated and contracted which I guess freaked out the surgery team. There was a labor and delivery nurse with me the whole time and they changed IV solutions and got me out moving out of OR quick.
Today is my 3rd day post op and I’m moving along pretty well. Just took off the compression dressings today. I knew I didn’t have a boob, I knew it was OK not to have a boob, but it was still freaky to see no boob. There are no outside stitches. They actually use surgical glue to glue my skin back together. Same stuff they use when they declaw a cat.
I have two Jackson Pratt drains in – Once they are out, I hear my pain will go down a lot. They really make things sore. Chris makes a great nurse. He has to strip and empty my drains 3x’s a day. My only complaint is his need to show off the “shocker” hand symbol every time he puts on the latex gloves. Not sure if that really is necessary. He’s been waiting on my hand and foot – he’s my angel.
Natalie is taking things pretty well. She was really scared at first and but she gets excited when it’s time to empty my drains announcing that its “time to empty mommy’s boobies again”.
The game plan so far is: Give me 3 weeks to heal and then Logan has to be induced around the 35th week. He should be fine. 2 weeks to heal (assuming it’s a vaginal delivery) then it’s on to 8 weeks of aggressive chemo. I’ll have to be on neurlasta (?) shots to keep my white blood cells up, then on to radiation. Somewhere in there I’ll have CT scans and bone scans to check for metastasis.
I have a psych consult next week. That should be the toughest appointment yet. The mental part of this whole thing is the worst. In a matter of 20 minutes I’ll break down and go through the whole grieving process of denial, to anger, to screaming at God, to trying to find someone to blame this one, and eventually you just end up on the floor in a fetal position crying “please don’t let me die”.
If you are interested – I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to pass this along to anyone you want. Also, if you don’t want these updates, let me know. I know some people have had friends or families members go through this and my emails are just another cruel reminder of what they too are facing.
Thanks again for ALL the thoughts and prayers. I wish I could adequately express how much they mean to me.
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