Me and My Heart Pillow

Ah, so glad to say that it's good to be home.  Got home yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon and went straight to bed and SLEPT for four hours straight.  Funny how it takes getting out of the hospital to get sleep. 

Monday was a long day, arrived 9:30 a.m., was taken via the underground passages to the Breast Care Center at 11 where I was injected with my isotope dye, first lidocaine into the breast, then one shot and then number two shot, and can I say for the record that #2, which was supposed to be painless, was very painful.  Per radiologist, "So sorry, you were not supposed to feel that." 

In my wheelchair side by side with another lady back to the surgical tower, she losing her left breast and me my right.  Together we make a full-breasted woman.  Gotta find some humor, right?

Lots of time waiting in our room for the green light, Rafael reading, me writing, and finally just watching stupid TV, plenty of medical personnel stopping in to do their thing.  I told the nurse that she had one shot to get the IV in, so she called in the expert who did get the IV in my hand, and the position of the metal, nonflexible catheter was challenging.  Any movement of the hand, particularly flexing of fingers, was not comfortable.  R told me that he would have his friend anesthesiologist change the IV once I was in surgery. 

Dr. Ferguson came in and marked out the pertinent lines on my breasts, the good for reference and the bad for...

Which just reminded me, he was going to take off my mole, which is located exactly between breast #1 and breast #2 if there was enough give of the tissues.  I just felt down my "surgical bra," and it appears that the mole is gone.  It was really not a big deal to me, since it isn't concerning and always covered, but since a man trained in the use of scalpel just happened to be working in that area, might as well cut it off.  R has jokingly referred to it as my third nipple all these years. 

At 3 I got the go-ahead and up we went to the floor above, placed in a "pod" so we could have a final meeting with Dr. Rasmusen and the anesthesiologist. 

With a final kiss and a tear in our eyes, off I go, to wake up in postop.  The glass fairy had magically placed my glasses on my face, and I remember looking at the clock across the room and it was already past 7:30.  Wow, a four-hour surgery. 

Waking up was good.  The anesthesiologist told me that it would be better than when I had my knee surgery (ACL and MCL) some years ago, as there is a lot of pain associated with drilling through bone...that wake-up was painful with lots of nausea and even throwing up in the barf-bag on the way home from the hospital.  Alas, this wake-up was easy.

Upon being wheeled back to my suite for the night, I was greeted by R and J and mom and dad.  They looked relieved to see me.  Jared was my savior and fed me ice chips.  I could not get enough of the ice.  My mouth was parched and after hours of a breathing tube I was hoarse, plus the don't eat/drink from the night before and fasting over the weekend, I was a little on the dehydrated side. 

The night was long, little sleep.  I got adequate pain control, some Dilaudid every two hours, from the surgical site (though could definitely tell when the anesthesia wore off), but it was the dang IV sites that kept irritating me.  The forearm site, which was placed during surgery, was stinging, so the nurse slowed down the IV drip, which helped with the irritation pain, but then I could not tolerate the constant sting, so had the nurse about midnight switch back to trying the hand IV, which was off and on with the pain.  At 5 a.m., I couldn't take the hand pain any more, which was increasing, so we switched back to the forearm IV site, again immediately the stinging pain started, so went to the hand and immediately had intense, swear-out-loud pain, so that IV was completely removed and I just had to deal with the IV irritation pain.  We skipped the saline solution completely and I concentrated on drinking fluid, but I was needing to get through an antibiotic drip.  Post shift change at 7 a.m., I called for my meds at 7:35 (was due for my every-two-hour IV med) at 7:30.  Finally, at 8 a.m. my nurse arrived with another bag of antibiotic.  Dang, here comes that stinging pain again, but fortunately a seasoned nurse supervisor stopped by and when I explained the IV site pain, she came back with a warm blanket.  Problem solved simply with warmth.  Wow, where was that blanket all during the night?  R arrived and said that the warmth probably dilated the vein which caused the pain to cease.  Ahh, relief. 

I just wanted to get out of the hospital and go home.  Breakfast arrived and my appetite had definitely arrived.  I ate everything, kept down the oral meds which were introduced, got to see all the necessary medical people on morning rounds and finally at noon was discharged, going home and sleeping soundly for the entire afternoon.  Nice.

RS brought in dinner, so lovely, so thoughtful.  I love my sisters.

Parents arrived in the afternoon and when they saw how mobile I was, able to get up and down by myself, doing very well, looking well, they were persuaded that they could return to Arizona, leaving this morning, as there was a storm coming in.  In fact, the wind has been blowing all day and now it's a winter blizzard outside, so I am so glad that they got away before the storm hit, as the next clearing window would have been days away. 

My new constant companion is a heart shaped pillow, skinny with a deep V, sewn as part of an Eagle project, which I place in my armpit, as that is where the most pain is interestingly, not the breast but the incision under my arm.

Speaking of arm, I was bummed to hear that my sentinel node tested positive for cancer.  In fact, Dr. Rasmussen said that he left the surgery to go to pathology and personally saw the node being sliced.  There were three spots of cancer, so Dr. Rasmussen ended up doing a full axillary dissection.  Not good news. 

However, the good news is that I'm home and recovering.  I stay in my PJs.  R is taking very good care of me, takes care of the drains and tomorrow night he will give me a shower and wash my hair.  Yes!!!  I cannot raise my right arm above the level of my shoulder, will not be allowed to do so for a couple weeks (to keep the stitches intact). 

My pillow and I will be checking back later.