Recovery is creeping along ever so slowly. Spent several hours in the OR last Monday night cleaning up the mess my body made of my incisions. Naturally, it was the Monday before Thanksgiving, but it did not deter my determination to celebrate Thanksgiving one iota.
Had to rearrange plans a bit, but that's ok. Cancer has taught me to be flexible and never to assume my body will respond as expected.
My oh so handsome Plastic Surgeon sliced open both incisions, removed the goo and made them all pretty, and sewed them back up again. It hasn't been painful, just a little uncomfortable. Dealing with the anesthesia was a bigger deal than the stitches. I've slept a lot this week. And I've watched more TV than I care to admit. But overall...not too bad.
The anticipation was far worse than the reality.
Going back to work tomorrow. I am ready. It's been 6 weeks. Leaving Saturday for a 5 day business trip. I'm sure to be exhausted when I get home.
Life is creeping along...
11/25/12
11/13/12
Two steps forward, one step back
I'm trying NOT to look at this as a set back. Really. But it's hard to keep my attitude on straight after all that has happened this terrible year.
Learned yesterday that we need to return to the OR to remove necrotic tissue from one of my incisions. That's another trip to the big hospital up the road, another anesthesia, another recovery. Not to mention another emotional hurdle to jump, which is getting harder and harder as we progress. Or don't progress - which is the crux of the problem.
I like things to move along. I'm a planner. I do better when I know what to expect. However, things aren't moving along according to my plan and it's starting to PISS ME OFF.
This next surgery was scheduled for today. Got a call early this morning that the surgeon was sick and we'd have to reschedule. I guess even doctors get sick. What a let down. What a bummer. Not that I was looking forward to it, but I was emotionally geared up. I was ready for the next heap of crap cancer would dump on me. I'd washed all the laundry, mopped the floors, notified my work that I would not be returning to work this week. My ducks were in a row.
NOW WHAT? Now they want to reschedule TWO weeks from now. That's totally not going to work for me. It's not in my plan. I'd already planned to return to work that week and travel to the west coast for a business meeting. I can't do either of those things if we schedule surgery for two weeks from now.
And won't that rotting tissue be really rotten two weeks from now? I liken it to watching a really ripe tomato rot away. Ewww.
The bigger problem is that it delays the reconstruction process. We can't begin to fill the expanders until the incisions are healed. And we can't swap the expanders for the implants until the are filled multiple times with saline making my breasts the size I want them. Another delay. I hate delays.
I hate my expanders, too. They are hard as a brick. They are uncomfortable 24 hours a day. I can't lay down flat cause they press against my chest making me feel like I can't breathe. It hurts to sit too long. The muscle holding them in place spasms when I move a certain way.
I keep telling myself that it's all going to be worth it when I get to come home with my new soft and nearly real-as-life boobs.
Yes indeed. Someday this will all be worth it. I'll have fresh perky boobs and I'll be healthy. But for the moment, it feels like cancer will just never stop dumping on me.
But on the other hand, I suppose it's better than the alternative. I could be dead. Ding dong dead. Instead, I'm bitchin' about how hard my boobs are and how I hate it when things don't go my way.
Maybe it's all not so bad...
Learned yesterday that we need to return to the OR to remove necrotic tissue from one of my incisions. That's another trip to the big hospital up the road, another anesthesia, another recovery. Not to mention another emotional hurdle to jump, which is getting harder and harder as we progress. Or don't progress - which is the crux of the problem.
I like things to move along. I'm a planner. I do better when I know what to expect. However, things aren't moving along according to my plan and it's starting to PISS ME OFF.
This next surgery was scheduled for today. Got a call early this morning that the surgeon was sick and we'd have to reschedule. I guess even doctors get sick. What a let down. What a bummer. Not that I was looking forward to it, but I was emotionally geared up. I was ready for the next heap of crap cancer would dump on me. I'd washed all the laundry, mopped the floors, notified my work that I would not be returning to work this week. My ducks were in a row.
NOW WHAT? Now they want to reschedule TWO weeks from now. That's totally not going to work for me. It's not in my plan. I'd already planned to return to work that week and travel to the west coast for a business meeting. I can't do either of those things if we schedule surgery for two weeks from now.
And won't that rotting tissue be really rotten two weeks from now? I liken it to watching a really ripe tomato rot away. Ewww.
The bigger problem is that it delays the reconstruction process. We can't begin to fill the expanders until the incisions are healed. And we can't swap the expanders for the implants until the are filled multiple times with saline making my breasts the size I want them. Another delay. I hate delays.
I hate my expanders, too. They are hard as a brick. They are uncomfortable 24 hours a day. I can't lay down flat cause they press against my chest making me feel like I can't breathe. It hurts to sit too long. The muscle holding them in place spasms when I move a certain way.
I keep telling myself that it's all going to be worth it when I get to come home with my new soft and nearly real-as-life boobs.
Yes indeed. Someday this will all be worth it. I'll have fresh perky boobs and I'll be healthy. But for the moment, it feels like cancer will just never stop dumping on me.
But on the other hand, I suppose it's better than the alternative. I could be dead. Ding dong dead. Instead, I'm bitchin' about how hard my boobs are and how I hate it when things don't go my way.
Maybe it's all not so bad...
11/11/12
Moving on
Is Thanksgiving really next week?
I can't believe it, even though I've spent most of the year in bed, on the sofa, in the hospital, in a chemo chair, or just plain bitchin' and whining. Still, I have a lot to be thankful for, so bring it on!
Still on medical leave from work dealing with the mastectomy. Oh yea. Having a few little issues, but overall nothing too terrible, and I'm even hoping to return to work next week. Talk about moving on...going back to work will be a serious dose of reality.
But the real work of moving on from a cancer diagnosis is about to begin. I've read a lot about "survivorship", but I couldn't even fathom what that meant until last week when I got some perfectly awesome news from my perfectly awesome oncologist.
She reviewed the pathology report from the mastectomy with me. She said - get ready for this - she said that it was the BEST NEWS POSSIBLE. She was blown away. An oncologist...blown away by a pathology report! You'd think she would have seen it all by now, but apparently I'm special. (We already knew that, right?)
Weigh the path report and lots of other hocus pocus medical stuff, put it in a pot and give a big stir, load into a calculator on the MD Anderson Cancer Center physician portal...and you are rewarded with a pretty little graph showing my opportunities for recurrence between 0 and 5%. That's lower than the general population.
Thank you, chemo hell. Thank you, mastectomy. Thank you, the hundreds of various pills I've taken this year. Thank you, God. You made it possible for me to get an unbelievably low recurrence score. Amazing.
Makes me feel pretty cocky. Cocky enough to want to rid my life of all the cancer crap in it. Including the hats and caps I bought to cover my bald head, the wig I bought and never wore, and all the pink shit decorating my house for the past several months from loving and well-meaning friends. I'm donating it all. Cause I don't need it any more.
How's THAT for something to be thankful for?
I can't believe it, even though I've spent most of the year in bed, on the sofa, in the hospital, in a chemo chair, or just plain bitchin' and whining. Still, I have a lot to be thankful for, so bring it on!
Still on medical leave from work dealing with the mastectomy. Oh yea. Having a few little issues, but overall nothing too terrible, and I'm even hoping to return to work next week. Talk about moving on...going back to work will be a serious dose of reality.
But the real work of moving on from a cancer diagnosis is about to begin. I've read a lot about "survivorship", but I couldn't even fathom what that meant until last week when I got some perfectly awesome news from my perfectly awesome oncologist.
She reviewed the pathology report from the mastectomy with me. She said - get ready for this - she said that it was the BEST NEWS POSSIBLE. She was blown away. An oncologist...blown away by a pathology report! You'd think she would have seen it all by now, but apparently I'm special. (We already knew that, right?)
Weigh the path report and lots of other hocus pocus medical stuff, put it in a pot and give a big stir, load into a calculator on the MD Anderson Cancer Center physician portal...and you are rewarded with a pretty little graph showing my opportunities for recurrence between 0 and 5%. That's lower than the general population.
Thank you, chemo hell. Thank you, mastectomy. Thank you, the hundreds of various pills I've taken this year. Thank you, God. You made it possible for me to get an unbelievably low recurrence score. Amazing.
Makes me feel pretty cocky. Cocky enough to want to rid my life of all the cancer crap in it. Including the hats and caps I bought to cover my bald head, the wig I bought and never wore, and all the pink shit decorating my house for the past several months from loving and well-meaning friends. I'm donating it all. Cause I don't need it any more.
How's THAT for something to be thankful for?
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