A few days after my surgery I hand wrote an account of my surgery and the immediate aftermath - I didn't have a computer in New Orleans so I was logging on to computer stations wherever I could find them - I planned to type it up and post it here but somehow I never got around to it. Anyhow, for those who are wondering what this is really like, I thought I'd dig it up and post it now, more or less unedited.
January 9, 2010
Today is Saturday. I have regained enough presence of mind to correctly identify the day. My surgery was last Tuesday, January 5. The day before my surgery, I began to suspect that this wasn't going to be much of a picnic when my doctor drew a purple magic marker diamond shape on each of my hips - it was about fourteen inches across and eight inches high. These were the incision lines for my "donor site". And then my sweet husband asked in all innocence if there would be many stitches at which point my good humored doctor kinda cackled and replied in his Southern drawl, "Oh yeah. There's gonna be a whole lotta stitches." Beaucoup stitches - another red flag.
On Tuesday, things started out bright and early - my surgery was scheduled for 7:00 AM and they wanted me at the hospital at 6:00 AM. I was pretty scared but everyone at the hospital was really nice and things moved along pretty rapidly so I didn't have too much time to stew. I changed into a hospital gown, they put in my IV, asked me a million questions, etc. Then they told me that they would give me something to "relax" me and bring my husband back to see me off. I have a vague recollection of my husband's face but mostly all I remember is the very pleasant dream I had - my toddler and I running barefoot through a grassy field in the sunshine (I guess my subconscious doesn't have much of an imagination). And then there were the faces of doctors and nurses hovering over me and saying I was "all done" and that everything had gone well. I felt no pain. For the next 24 hours or so my system was flooded with so much morphine that I just drifted in and out of consciousness but I had no pain whatsoever, not even a twinge. The nurses came and went in a haze - checked the internal dopplers in the new breasts for blood flow, took vitals, etc but I was hardly aware of any of it. The flaps survived the first critical twenty-four hours.
My first impression of my new breasts was "they're pretty but I hate them." They are almost too perfect - too round, too perky. And they're just so unfamiliar. I'm sure I'll get used to this but acceptance will take some time.
I wish the story of my mastectomy and reconstruction ended there but the days following my morphine bliss have been days of ever increasing misery. I was weaned off the morphine and onto oral painkillers. The oral painkillers take the edge off the pain but I have felt horrible nausea and dizziness necessitating the addition of anti-nausea meds to the mix. Predictably my worst pain has been at the incision sites in my hips. I have a shocking 14 inch gash on each hip. I also have a lot of pain in my sternum. As it was explained to me, some of the rib cartilage is cut in order to reattached the flaps to the blood supply in the chest. I feel a lot of soreness there. Surprisingly, I have comparatively little pain in my arms and in my shoulders. My range of motion is quite good. I can pull tops on over my head, shampoo and blow dry my hair, and reach for things so long as I don't stretch too much.
And then there is the girdle . . . Oy. I have to say that despite all of my mental preparation for this, I was blindsided by the girdle. I was not aware that I was going to have to wear a tight girdle for a month. To prevent the hip incisions from swelling uncontrollably I am encased in a black lycra vise. It is uncomfortable and revolting.
And let's not forget the drains - two drains from the new breasts and two coming out of my hips. These are necessary to drain the fluid from my incision sites.
Following surgery like this nothing is self-evident. Peeing, for example. On Wednesday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to get up, to feel my feet under me. So I asked my nurse to remove my catheter and take me to the toilet which she was happy to do. The ten steps required to get from my bed to the bathroom might as well have been an ascent on the North Face of Mount Everest - my body felt like a block of concrete. But with two nurses holding me up and my husband standing behind me "just in case", I made it to the toilet at which point I sat. And sat. And sat. And sat some more. Fortunately, it wasn't a crowded restaurant so no one was banging on the door for me to get out. After about twenty minutes we had a trickle. Then nothing. Then another trickle. And so it went on. . . I realized that I was going to have to be toilet trained again, alongside my toddler.
On Thursday morning, I hit the wall. As I shuffled my way to the bathroom my right drain rotated in a weird way and started stabbing me. Every step felt like a knife plunged into my hip. By the time I got to the bathroom, I just started bawling uncontrollably like a baby – there I was, grasping for the support bars in the bathroom, four drains, pain balls, wires coming out of my breasts and clad in nothing but an incredibly itchy girdle with an enormous crotch hole. All I could think was “I can’t do this anymore.” I was seriously ready to yank everything out of me and make for the door. By some miracle, my doctor happened to be doing the rounds at that particular moment and saw me in all this glory. He adjusted the wayward drain, loosened and lowered the girdle (so it was just up to my waist rather than around my chest), and helped me back to bed. Later on that day, the nurses helped me take a shower. I was allowed a two hour respite from the loathsome girdle before the nurses came and stuffed me back in. The only good news to emerge from my little pity party is that my doctor informed me that I could wear ordinary biker shorts instead of the girdle so my husband and I are going to the mall today to see if I can find some in order to escape this horrible girdle.
Since Thursday I've had some additional "woe is me" moments. I feel sorry for myself and wonder why this is happening to me. I feel bleak and dejected. But for the most part those moments don't last and I'm looking forward to walking around outside and trying to find ways to just feel better.
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Posted by: Teri S. | February 22, 2010 at 01:01 AM