On this day in history…
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: breast cancer, Surgery | Tags: breast reconstruction surgery, Center for Breast Restoration, DIEP surgery, JP drains, Texas Medical Center, the Big Dig 15 Comments
bag packed, Snoopy donated by Macy to keep me company
One year. 365 days. Or, 366 days with a leap year. Either way, a year is a long time, a lotta days. So much can–and does–happen in the span of a year. Each day is ripe with possibility, and none was as much so as March 2, 2011. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” Looking back at this day last year, I’m taking his advice and am going to write it on my heart: being one year out, exactly, from The Big Dig makes this day the best day in the year. This time last year, I was once again in a hospital gown while my cabal of surgeons brandished multi-colored Sharpies to designate the roadmap that would lead us out of the ravages of infection.
pre-surgery note from my sweet girl
I haven’t yet processed all the thoughts and emotions attached to this day one year ago. I don’t know when or how that will happen. My reconstruction surgery was big. Epic, even. After a long and winding road of “whatever can go wrong did go wrong” post-mastectomy, getting to the point of being able to have reconstruction was major progress. All of the research, doctors’ powwows, appointments, testing, and paperwork involved was just the tip of the iceberg. Then came the actual procedure, and then the recovery. None of those, however, are as arduous as it is to wrap my head around the “journey” that reconstruction was–and still is–for me.
Because I haven’t yet wrapped my head around my reconstruction “journey,” and because frankly I’m kinda scared to pick at that scab and let loose the torrent of emotions lying under the surface, I’m not going to write about it. Yet.
Instead, I present highlights from the surgery day and the days and weeks that followed. As you loyal readers will remember from this time last year, it was several days before I was able to sit at my computer and type. My trusty stand-in bloggers were the hubs, Trevor, and my surgery sherpa and dear friend Amy. They filled in for me when I was unable to process a coherent thought, sit upright, or use my arms.
While I never got bogged down in the “Why me?” school of thought regarding the complications that ensued from my cancer “journey,” I know now that there are a lot of thoughts and feelings still untapped regarding the perilous trek from normal person to breast cancer patient to survivor. So busy was I handling the logistics of each new complication that dealing with the emotional fallout took a backseat to just getting through each new hiccup. I know all you arm-chair psychiatrists out there are shaking your collective heads and tsk-tsking me for tamping down these thoughts and feelings. I would pass the same judgment on any other poor sap in my shoes. However, you do what you gotta do to get through the worst times, and “when you’re going through hell, keep going,” as Mr Churchill so sagely advised.
Mr Churchill would probably also advise me to quit talking about it and get to it, so here, without further ado, are the highlights (or are they lowlights?) of The Big Dig.
After the surgery was finally complete, Trevor was eerily prophetic when he forecasted the tough days ahead: “She is still awake but in a bit of pain. They are not fooling around with it at least and they just upped her pain-med clicker along with a nice big slug of morphine. We have some tough days ahead while she recovers but everything looks great so far.”
morphine pump with a very large keychain
After surgery and the recovery room, I was shipped straight to ICU for an unpleasant stay that seemed endless. In Recovery Trevor wrote, “We made it through the first night in ICU. The nurses checked on her every hour last night so she didn’t get too much sleep though. They have ordered a regular room for her but they won’t let her out of ICU until she sits up in a chair for an hour. They just wheeled the chair in, this is gonna hurt.”
I remember how ominous it was when the chair was wheeled into my room. A hush filled the room as everyone realized what was about to take place. Anyone who’s had a C-section knows how difficult it is to move straight after, and with a hip-to-hip incision, “difficult” barely covers it.
Trevor wrote about making the switch from ICU to a regular hospital room: “Finally out of ICU. It took forever to get out of there, there just seemed to be always one more thing. They had to take blood and couldn’t get enough from the line in her hand despite much digging and infliction of pain. They finally just opened up her chemo port and had it done in a snap. Of course they had already packed her up for transport so the morphine pump was temporarily disconnected. But Nancy is a bad ass and toughed it out.”
I have no recollection of this at all. That’s probably a good thing. I’m glad I was a bad-ass about it, though.
In So Long ICU Amy wrote: “She’s super tired. Come to find out her new breasticles have to have their arterial blood flow checked once an hour and it’s been that way since the surgery ended yesterday and will be through tomorrow…..so cat naps abound. They made her get up and have a ‘sitting trial’ time for an hour and she did really well. To hear her tell the doctors about it, it was ‘hard’ but as an observer she handled the “trial” with grit and humor–typical Nancy. Tomorrow’s plan is to do a little bit of walking and take a shower.”
It wasn’t long before the wailing & gnashing of teeth commenced. As soon as I made the transition from drugged up to mildly lucid, I figured out that this wasn’t going to be an easy recovery. In Utter Exhaustion Amy explained: “I’ve only had to charge her the $10 for ‘having to put up with your complaints fee’ twice today. As much as Nancy would like you to think she’s a troublesome patient, she is not, at all. In fact, the staff enjoy her very much. Her easygoing nature was complimented today when she had to make the effort to get in the chair to sit for another hour. Le, her nurse, commented about how Nancy’s attitude really made her job easier.”
I put on a happy face for my medical peeps, but was a bit more realistic with my closest caregivers.
Amy continues: “Complaint number 1: This particular complaint is what brought on the $10 charge twice today. The ICU room was hot, very hot. In fact there were heaters brought in just for this purpose…two of them. Seems that the stomach tissue that they harvested for her new rack doesn’t realize that it has to get its heat source from her body instead of the outside air, so for the next few weeks Nancy needs to have a warmer than normal outside air temperature. I think the docs even suggested turning off the AC at her house once she gets out of here, but Nancy and I decided to let that one go over our heads. Nancy actually assessed herself the charge after I mentioned that I charge $10 at my house for being ‘grouchy, irritable, or just plain mean.’ Then she said, ‘And you can charge me another $10 for this one…..’ Complaint number 2: Headache. A bad one. She’s been dealing with this all day. The nurses say she had a pretty major dose of morphine in the ICU so that is a side effect of morphine and it should work itself out as she uses less and less morphine. Because of this, Nancy has decided that Mr. Morphine Pump may not be summoned every time the pain surges. She’s thinking about it before she presses the button. On one side there’s the headaches. On the other side there’s the pain. It’s a delicate seesaw to manage.”
“The good news is that despite the pain, she managed to move from her bed to the recliner, sat for an hour, then ambulated back to the bed with only 1 morphine pump at the beginning of the whole scenario. The nurses are impressed with how tough our girl is!”
I still owe Amy $20. Maybe more.
My intrepid sherpa wrote the Morning Report the day after I was released from ICU: “This morning the muscle tightness and tenderness in the belly incision reared its ugly head and has taken the forefront in the battle for attention. While Nancy hasn’t actually called it pain, I think that may be the best word for it. There’s a lot of bruising around the hip-to-hip incision, and the docs said that they did had to work hard with her muscle layer there as well as on her chest wall so this is to be expected. She has been given Flexeril (a muscle relaxer) to help with this and the added benefit is that it makes her VEEEERRRYYY sleepy. So, even though at 5:15 AM, Nancy was confident that she was up for the day and we did the teeth brushing and face washing that comes with a new day, she was within minutes back to sawing logs. Good Girl! She has been dreaming out loud and woke asking me, ‘Is that due tomorrow?’ You can take the Mom out of the home but you can’t take the Home out of the Mom!”
Whatever assignment was due hopefully got done; I have no idea what it was!
Rejuvenated?? was written 2 days after surgery, by Amy: “Mr. Morphine Pump and the rest of his crew are yet again dust in the wind. Nancy is free of anything that follows her on a pole. She does have 6 drains and 2 doppler wires, plus her central line access port, so she’s still got a little gear. The big event today was a shower. Well, all I have good to say about that shower is that Nancy is clean. One word I could use to describe how Nancy tolerated the event was that she was speechless. So, suffice it to say that the pain from the ab incision reached out and grabbed hold of her. By the time she had recovered enough from the trauma of the shower to find her voice she said, ‘That’s NOT happening again! I’m clean enough!'”
Finally, I was able to post for myself and in 1 Week Ago, I got to it: Long story short, the flaps [newly fashioned breasts from belly tissue] were cooperating, the morphine headache abated, some regular food arrived, and life rolled on. At some point they moved the flap checks to every two hours instead of hourly, which was mighty nice. It’s amazing how your perspective changes in a situation like that. After umpteen hours with no food, a simple PB&J was a delicacy. After being awake most of the night, a short cat-nap seemed a decadent luxury. While I feel a whole lot better and am ready to get back to normal, my handlers think one week post-op is a bit premature to jump right back into the day-in, day-out routine. I am trying to take it easy. I’m resigned to the fact that I’m back to one outing a day for a while, and sadly, a doctor’s appointment counts as an outing. Yesterday I had a small entourage escort me to for my checkup, and we had a bite of lunch (sans margaritas) beforehand. 
The handlers insisted on snapping a photo of this maiden voyage, and there was some talk of me earning a margarita for every device I had removed at the subsequent appointment. Between the two doppler wires and the 4 JP drains, somebody owes me 6 margaritas. No salt.” 
A little later, in Wisdom from the DL, I got real about my hatred of all things invalid-related: “I’ll never be good at being a spectator in my own life, and I’ll never be one who enjoys the journey in my haste to get to the destination,but I have learned the value of time & place and that sometimes you have to be instead of do. I’ve learned to chant It’s temporary a thousand and one times to remind myself that while this is my life, it won’t always be like this.”
One year later–one very long year that was equally horrific and hard yet insightful and triumphant–I’m still reminding myself.
Square one
Posted: November 17, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue | Tags: cancer diagnosis, MD Anderson, missing mom, Nido Quebein, oophorectomy, postaday2011, psychological effects of breast cancer, square one, the Big Dig 7 Comments
“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go, they merely determine where you start.”
Thank you, Dr Nido Quebein, for telling me that. After the rough start I had last week, I was disheartened at the idea of starting over — from Square One — in finding a surgeon to do my oophorectomy. I needed a little attitude adjustment and Dr Q’s lovely quote provided just that.
Here’s the thing: my cancer “journey” has been long, complicated, circuitous, and seemingly endless. What is essentially a rather simple cancer that should have been easy to eliminate turned into a wild game of “how much can you take?” Just as I thought I was nearing the end of my “journey,” with what could be my last revision to reconstruction, the game became more intense and complicated and pretty much blew up in my face.
The next step of my “journey” should have been quite simple — have a routine procedure to remove my ovaries and eliminate the hormone production that fed my cancer. It’s outpatient surgery and rather easy compared to what I’ve endured thus far. But rather than being simple and working according to plan, it got hairy and I got overwhelmed. The idea of yet another doctor becoming involved filled me with dread, and it was like I was back at the beginning of this “journey,” newly diagnosed and jumping through hoops, frantically doing what’s needed to get to the next step.
Here’s where we are now: after standing on my head and reciting the alphabet backwards while juggling flaming batons, I was granted an audience with the lovely lady who schedules appointments for the next doctor in my ever-expanding roster. Oh happy day, after trying for 4 days to get through to this lovely lady, success was mine! I learned that this doctor only has office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays because she’s in surgery every other day. Makes perfect sense, as she is a GYN oncology surgeon at the world’s #1 cancer hospital. What doesn’t make sense is why her staff doesn’t seem to be around on those other days. But apparently that’s not my concern and as long as I jump through the right hoops, maintain my headstand and keep those flaming batons twirling, I will eventually get what I need.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Silly, silly girl.
You’d think I would have learned at some point on this wretched “journey” that even when one does all the right things, and completes all the required steps, one still does not get what one needs.
When a human voice finally appears on the other end of the line, I think I’m going to actually schedule an appointment. I’ve cleared my schedule to accommodate hers. I am ready and willing to appear in her office at MD Anderson whenever she can see me. It’s the absolute last thing I want to do, mind you — see another doctor about another surgery. To add insult to injury, factor in the psychological warfare involved in knowing that this next doc works in the same facility–and in the same department–where my mom sought treatment for her cancer, and her “journey” didn’t exactly have a happy ending. Not even close.
Nope, scheduling an appointment isn’t that easy. First, there’s the prerequisite litany of questions: name, address, phone numbers, email address, birthdate, insurance carrier, group number, ID number, policy holder’s DOB and SSN. Then comes the question of what’s your diagnosis? When I replied, breast cancer, the lovely lady not so lovingly informed me that this office doesn’t deal with breasts. Duh. I patiently replied that I understand that and know that this office deals with the more southern ladyparts, but because of my breast cancer, I need to consult with this doc on an oophorectomy. Seems clear, right? Then the lovely lady wants to know why I want to have my ovaries removed.
Why, indeed?
Because I’m bored. Because it’s been too long between surgeries for me. Because I miss the prick of the IV desperately searching for a vein in my tapped-out venous system. Because I’m lonely for the company of people in scrubs & white coats. Because I’m hankering for the smell of Betadine and the commotion of the OR. Because I long for the feel of the plastic mask on my face as I lie completely naked under a bright light in a room full of strangers. Because I’m hoping to lose a few lbs before the holiday glut and think the all-day vomiting that inevitably comes to me after anesthesia is a good diet plan. Because I haven’t spent enough time recuperating from surgery while the world around me marches ever onward.
If there’s a contest for most horribly worded question, this lovely lady would win it, hands down.
Once again, I’m called upon to gather my composure and marshal my manners to answer. I resisted the mighty temptation to give her a smart-ass answer and calmly replied, because my oncologist recommends eliminating the source of the cancer-causing hormones. I wonder if the lovely lady could tell I was answering her through tightly-gritted teeth and with fists clenched as I battled the urge to make her ears bleed from a long, colorful line of cuss words. I wonder if I should have told her that when you’re diagnosed with cancer at age 40, with elementary-school-aged kids at home, and when your own sweet mama died an anything-but-peaceful death from cancer at the still-young age of 67, you’ll take whatever steps are necessary to increase your odds against this savage killer.
Lovely lady went on to inform me that I would need to provide documentation of my breast cancer being ER+ and PR+ (estrogen and progesterone positive), along with a host of other documentation. I would need to provide pathology reports from my breast biopsy in April of last year, when the idea of becoming a cancer patient was the last thing on my mind. And go ahead and throw in the pathology reports from my bilateral mastectomy and the paperwork on my last Pap smear, too. Wait–don’t forget to have Dr P, the OB-GYN who referred me to the GYN oncology surgeon, send his notes as well. After that, and after verifying my insurance, the GYN oncology surgeon will review my case and see if there is sufficient evidence to proceed. Lovely lady promised to call me back and let me know where I stand.
For realz.
Ok, so more hoops to jump through, more due diligence on my part. Luckily I’m a rather fastidious cancer girl, and I have a very thick pink binder containing copies of everything the lovely lady requested except the Pap report and Dr P’s notes. Two phone calls and one online consent form later, that information is en route to LL.
Hurry up and wait.
After making the phone calls and gathering my records, I faxed 24 pages of the juiciest details of my breast cancer. All the nitty-gritty deets about tumor markers, mitotic index, prognostic markers, lymphovascular invasion scenario, anatomic pathology diagnosis, sentinel lymph node results, tumor size, and Elston-Ellis modified scores. It’s a fascinating read. And a wonderful trip down memory lane, just as I think I’m putting a little distance between myself and the cancer show.
I’ve done my part, now I wait.
Back to Square One.
Beer for dinner
Posted: November 11, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue | Tags: beer for dinner, gyn oncology, Johnson Space Center, laparoscopic surgery, oophorectomy, postaday2011, psychological effects of breast cancer, Texas Medical Center, the Big Dig 14 Comments
shortsbrewing.com
Nobody said it would be easy…but I certainly didn’t expect it to be this hard. “It” is my least-favorite part of the cancer “journey,” which is the uncertainty and the waiting. The uncertainty and the waiting are far-reaching and apply to many aspects of the cancer “journey,” whether in awaiting pathology results, trying to schedule an appointment with the litany of doctors involved in one’s care, or marking time on the calendar between the latest procedure and getting back to “normal.”
The uncertainty and waiting applied this week to my attempts to move forward on the long-ago planned but not yet executed oophorectomy. When this whole mess began, and by mess I mean breast cancer so rudely interrupting my otherwise happy, healthy life, I knew that I would at some point need to have my ovaries removed. Those two oval-shaped organs have got to go because of the estrogen and progesterone they produce.
Monday I saw an OB-GYN, let’s call her Dr P, who is part of my OB-GYN practice but not my doctor. She delivered Macy because she was on call when my little girl made her appearance into the world. I chose to see her this week because her reputation as a surgeon is stellar and she is known for her patients not having complications, something that appealed mightily to me, the reigning Queen of Complications. I’m more than ready to take off that crown and pass it on to my successor.
Anyhoo, Monday’s visit with Dr P wasn’t terrible but it introduced a fly into the ointment when she enlightened me to the fact that a laparoscopic oophorectomy wasn’t an option for me because of the abdominal incision on my belly from The Big Dig. This was something I hadn’t even considered and is another example of how much of what one needs to know along this cancer “journey” must be learned the hard way. Hate that.
So I left Dr P’s office on Monday trying to wrap my head around scenario #1: the idea of open surgery, which is most unpleasant to me, and that she won’t be able to use the existing incision but will require another incision, below the 17-incher I’m already sporting. That incision is healing so nicely, and is so razor-thin and in the process of disappearing altogether. The idea of messing with it and disrupting its lovely healing is not my favorite.
In discussing the shifting scenario on Tuesday with the cabal of Amys, my two dear friends whose previous medical professions have made them trusted members of my decision-making team, it becomes clear that while Dr P is a great surgeon, she may not be the right one for me. I’m not ready to give up on the idea of doing this next surgery laparoscopically, which means I need to get a second opinion. As much as my petulant self did not want to set foot in one more doctor’s office, and as much as my weary self hated the idea of making yet another appointment, paying yet another hefty co-pay, and trotting out my sordid cancer history one more time, I knew it needed to be done. I got lucky and there was an opening to see the second Dr P on Thursday. Perfect.
I already had a doctor’s appointment for Thursday, with Dr N to investigate the idea of getting a little nip/tuck for my bladder. If we’re going with scenario #1 and doing open surgery for the oophorectomy, might as well take care of the bladder, which is showing signs of wear & tear that will only get worse with time and my balls-out style on the tennis court. I really like Dr N and went from dreading the idea of the nip/tuck to seeing how it can seriously improve one’s daily life. And I love that Dr N called me the “perfect candidate” for this simple procedure. Hooray! “Perfect” and “simple” are two terms that have not applied to any of my cancer “journey” thus far. After all this time and a case that’s been anything but textbook, I’m the perfect candidate. That was satisfying on many levels. Dr N works with both Dr P and the second Dr P, so it appeared to be a simple case of choose which OB-GYN to do the oophorectomy, and Dr N would coordinate. I’m lucky that Dr N works with both of the OB-GYNs I’m considering, because he doesn’t work with docs in the med center, so lucky me: I have my choice of OB-GYNS and the fantastic Dr N right in my backyard. I left Dr N’s office with something that’s been painfully absent in my cancer “journey” of late: hope. I was hopeful that this next round of surgery was going to come together, despite the shifting scenarios.
Stupid girl.
That hope was summarily dashed when the second Dr P has yet another differing opinion on how to do this surgery. What was I thinking, having hope and feeling good about the direction I was headed? What an utter fool I was for believing, however briefly, that the tide was turning and for once things were going to work according to plan. Granted, the plan has changed several times in the short span of a few days, and with each new doctor there comes a new scenario for which I have to wrap my head around, but I actually felt good after the visit to Dr N and went into the visit with the second Dr P thinking this would all come together.
I absolutely love, love, love the second Dr P. I loved him before officially meeting him when I overheard his phone conversation with a patient as I was escorted into an exam room. I have no idea what the reason was for the phone call, but he exuded care and concern with that patient via phone, and although I don’t know any details it was clear he was finding a solution. He is everything the first Dr P is not: warm, energetic, full of personality, an outside-of-the-box thinker who was genuinely interested in finding the best solution for me. He agreed with the first Dr P about my belly not having enough wiggle room to allow for laparoscopic surgery, and he introduced yet another troubling facet to this already-troublesome situation: if we do open surgery, whether using the existing incision or making another one, there’s precious little room to close that incision. The skin is just too tight–too tight to allow the area to be inflated for surgery, and too tight to close after surgery. He was also adamantly against open surgery because of the infection risk.
But the second Dr P isn’t giving up, and he hatches a new plan. Scenario #3: consult Dr K, a GYN oncology surgeon who does robotic oophorectomies.
I didn’t know such an option existed. Again, learning the hard way. And by the hard way, I mean the most exhausting and mentally taxing way. I told the second Dr P that as much as I appreciate his obvious care for the best possible outcome for me, I’m a bit on the Type A side. I’m a planner, I like things to go according to plan, I dislike change, and I do not shift gears well. In the span of 3 days, I’ve gone from laparoscopic; to a whole new incision; to using the same incision; to not favoring open surgery; to re-exploring laparoscopic; to nope, it won’t work logistically; to robotic surgery.
That wears me out.
I worked hard to wrap my head around the second Dr P’s plan. I really tried to embrace scenario #3, even though it meant adding another doctor to my roster. The second Dr P was sympathetic. He understands that I don’t want to get another doctor involved, and that I thought I had a plan and now everything is topsy-turvy. He reminded me that it’s worth it to see yet another doctor because he truly believes the robotic surgery will give me the best possible outcome, and with a shorter recovery time to boot. Sounds win-win, right?
Except that, just as I’m shifting gears clunkily and going along with this plan, another *&@%^ complication arises: Dr K, the doctor who would do this robotic surgery, is leaving the country — tomorrow — for 6 weeks.
Really?
Really???
Shoot me now.
That was it. I’d had it. I marshalled every ounce of self-control I had in order to avoid bursting into tears right there. And I am not a crier. Especially not in front of other people.
The second Dr P’s nurse, Maria, saw my distress and said, let me catch Dr P when he comes out of the exam room to see what else we can do. Thank you, Maria.
So she caught the second Dr P and told him that Dr K was unavailable for 6 weeks and that if this already-mentally-unstable patient has to wait that long to even see if scenario #3 will pan out, she may go bat-shit crazy and take us all out in a to-the-brink umbrage from which there will be no survivors.
The second Dr P called Amy and me over to the nurse’s station and hatched an alternate plan: use another GYN oncology surgeon who does robotic procedures. Thank goodness I live in a city that is ripe with specialty surgeons. But alas, both Dr K and Dr B, the second GYN oncology surgeon, work in the med center, which screws up my plan to incorporate Dr N into the surgery. Great googlie-mooglie, the idea of finding another urologist to do the bladder surgery –when I felt so good about Dr N doing it–was altogether too much to think about. I’m really on the brink now.
Sweet Maria offers to call the second GYN oncology surgeon’s office and make the appointment for me. At this point, she could have strapped me into a lunar module and sent me on a one-way trip to Mars. My brain was beyond fried so I blithely nodded my assent.
image courtesy of Johnson Space Center
retrosigns&more.net
Would you believe that surgeon’s office was already closed for the day? And is closed on Fridays, so I have to wait until Monday to even see whether I can get an appointment. Cue the to-the-brink umbrage. And the beer for dinner. Five doctors in this week–and more to come–and I’m no closer to having an answer.
This brings us back full circle, to my least-favorite part of the cancer “journey,” which is the uncertainty and the waiting. I’m uncertain about which scenario will play out, and I’m waiting to get an appointment with yet another doctor, who I fully expect will come up with yet another scenario. Here’s one thing I am certain of, and there will be no waiting on this fact: I’ll be having beer for dinner again tonight.
A day of deliveries
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: Burt Reynolds, cancer battle, Deliverance, derby pie, Jon Voight, postaday2011, psychological effects of breast cancer, the Big Dig 5 CommentsI thought about titling this Deliverance, as in the iconic 1972 movie. Like the movie, this week has been fraught with a “grueling psychological and physical journey” as I once again maneuver the rapids of this cancer “journey.” Ok, this week hasn’t been so fraught with the physical journey, as the most taxing part of it has entailed sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms for hours on ends. Not exactly a physical trial, but what it has lacked in the physical hardships, it’s made up for in the psychological difficulties.
If you haven’t seen the movie Deliverance, consider this a tip: it’s not pleasant to watch. Yes, it has Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds, but it’s also got some inbred locals and some nasty mountain men. The term “squeal like a pig” will never seem the same after one particular scene in Deliverance. The “Dueling Banjos” may well be forever lodged in your brain as well. Good luck getting that “song” unstuck from your head.
In the movie, the city slickers take a canoe trip down a river in a remote part of Georgia. They want to travel an uncharted section of the river before a dam project forever changes the river’s course. Initially, the trip is thrilling and chock-full of natural beauty, but things take a decidedly ugly turn as the foursome gets separated and the river becomes rougher. Eventually, the men are face-to-face with the reality of survival as they struggle to prevail over nature and win back the ability to exist in a civilized manner.
Going toe-to-toe with the worst that nature dishes out is an epic journey, much like the cancer “journey.” Cancer has dished out some nastiness, and my body has struggled mightily in an effort to right the listing ship and get back to “normal.” This week has been far off of normal as I’ve encountered some trouble in getting to the next surgery, the oophorectomy. The surgery has always been in the plan, it was just a matter of when to do it. The time is upon me, but the OB-GYN I met with Monday left me with more questions than answers in what should be a settled matter. In addition to being hell-bent on reiterating the risks and espousing the wide-ranging unpleasantries of surgical menopause on a “young” woman such as myself, she introduced a new fly in the ointment by decreeing that a laparoscopic oophrectomy was not an option for me because of the existing abdominal scar from The Big Dig.
Cue the confusion and emotional scrabbling that occurs when a doctor brings up an issue I’m neither prepared for nor expecting. Just as I’m wrapping my head around the new idea of open surgery and all its risks and recovery issues, everything changes. Now I feel compelled to get another opinion on whether this surgery can indeed be done laparoscopically. And that’s what I’m going to do.
So as much as I hate the idea of getting yet another doctor involved, and as much as it pains me to realize that this “journey” is yet again complicated by things beyond my control, I pulled my battered self up by the proverbial bootstraps and made the appointment. And I will endure more hours waiting for another doc to weigh in on my disheartening situation. Getting on the phone and scheduling an appointment doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but when you’re confused, emotionally drained, and frankly, pissed off at the world, it is a big deal. It also means rehashing–again–my long, complicated history with breast cancer and infection, which truly is something I’d like to just forget, put behind me, and move on down the road. Where is that damned magic wand, anyway??
All this bitchin’ and moanin’ leads me to the reason for this post: the day of deliveries. Just when I was at my wit’s end and was beyond ready to give up and declare myself the loser in this epic battle, I hear the rumbling of the FedEx truck coming down my street and stopping at my house. Imagine my utter delight when a box appears on my front doorstep. 
I get a monthly delivery from my oncologist’s to-your-door pharmacist, but this is way better. 
This delivery smells good, feels nice and weighty, and has a delicate crumb sneaking out of the wrapping.
It’s a homemade pie!
A homemade pie that’s magically appeared on my doorstep.
Just when I needed the boost that comes from a decadent treat, there it is.
I didn’t even think about waiting until after dinner to dig in.
I cut that pie and scarfed down a big ol’ piece without thinking twice. I couldn’t care less about the calorie content or the ungodly amount of sugar contained in that piece. Instead, I enjoyed every minute of it. Derby pie, which is pecan pie on steroids, is something that would normally be a very occasional treat; in fact, it’s been more than a decade since I’ve had a piece. But the flaky, buttery crust and the nutty, caramely, filling with the sinful addition of chocolate chips and whiskey could not have come at a better time. How great is that to have a delicious pie that’s not only sweet and gooey and nutty and chocolatey but also boozy? Heaven on Earth. Finally, something worth smiling about! And what a wonderful coincidence that I’m eating delicious homemade pie mere days after I guest-blogged about … drumroll, please … homemade pie on my friend Marie’s blog. Marie is going through a terribly rough time right now, and her blog friends banded together to stand in the gap for her while she tends to the awfulness that is a dying parent (Huge kudos to Lauren for being the mastermind behind this lovely gesture). I was beyond honored to help, and thought pie a fitting subject to distract us from the gravity of her situation. I’m going to go out on a limb here and declare pie a temporary panacea to the emotional trials, large and small, that plague us.
As if my full belly and sugar-high weren’t enough, I soon heard the rumble of another delivery truck at my house and could hardly believe my fortune at getting another surprise delivery. Two in one day? Fantastic!
This one wasn’t food, but flowers!
Oh, how I love fresh flowers. There’s something so cheery about the pinks, yellows, and greens all working together to present a beautiful palette. I just adore the way the individual flowers nestle against one another to comprise a unit. They’re separate but when combined with others, they become cohesive. And the fact that their lifespan is fleeting makes me cherish them all the more — enjoy them while they’re here. Another decadent indulgence that makes me smile. Many thanks to my pie-shipping friend in Minnesota, and to my in-laws in Kentucky for turning around a rotten week. Three days in, I was ready to chuck this week and start over, but no more.
Finally! Something wonderful comes my way.
Jane, get me off this crazy thing!
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue, menopause | Tags: Alice in Wonderland, breast cancer, Eclipse, Edward Cullen, oophrectomy, postaday2011, psychological effects of breast cancer, Queen of Hearts, surgery, the Big Dig, the Jetsons 9 Comments
Remember George Jetson? And his ill-fated stint on the treadmill? And him begging his too-cute-for-him wife to get him off the crazy thing? I know how George feels. I’ve never been a fan of the treadmill in general, much preferring to get my cardio fix outside or slog my miles on the elliptical, but this figurative treadmill I’m on now is the pits. Stop the ride, I want off.
I mentioned that I have a heavy issue on my mind and wasn’t sure what to do about it. Yesterday was intended for settling the issue and making the necessary plans to move forward. Instead, it was a craptastic example how nothing goes as planned or as expected on this damned cancer “journey.” Having just come off a week of antibiotic hell after my latest reconstruction revision, craptastic was the last thing I needed. And yet, in typical cancer “journey” fashion, it’s got to be as complicated as humanly possible.
Yesterday started with a trip to the dermatologist for ye annual mole check, and that visit ended with 2 shaved-off moles being sent off for biopsy and the unceremonial removal of 7 or 8 skin tags. Being a melanoma victim, I’m pretty serious about any weird-looking spots on my skin and don’t hesitate to point out ones that need to be lopped off. Like the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, I say “Off with their heads.” I was a walking Band-Aid when she got done with me. Then I headed straight to my next appointment, stop #2 of 3 on the Monday doctors’ tour, which should have been a simple fact-finding trip but ended up being an exercise in frustration and confusion.
Here’s the deal: when I was first diagnosed, way back when in a time that now seems like another lifetime entirely, I knew that at some point I would need to have my ovaries removed. The oophrectomy, in addition to being an outstanding Scrabble word, was a foregone conclusion. Think about it: ovaries produce estrogen and progesterone, both of which provide the fuel for my kind of cancer. Cut off the fuel supply and starve the cancer and eliminate any hope it may have of coming back.
Simple, right?
Then the post-mastectomy infection reared its ugly, ugly head, and I wasn’t well enough to undergo another surgery for quite a long time. (Some certain people who read this blog don’t like to see mention of said infection, which I totally get, but it’s kinda vital in the chain of events, so let’s all just suck it up and read on; it was a fluke infection for which no one can be held accountable. File that one under “shit happens.”) Moving on….Then once I was well enough after the infection, I was sick to death of sickness and near-deathness, so the idea of another surgery was most unpalatable to me. I wanted and needed — and deserved, dammit — to get back to “normal” for a bit before going under the knife yet again, so the oophrectomy was postponed. But it remained a constant, a “when” not an “if.”
My stint back to “normal” was short-lived, however, because once I was recovered enough from the mess last summer, it became apparent that we needed to go ahead with reconstruction asap in order to give the now-healed chest wall a vascular system. That poor chest wall had sunk and had been sliced & diced & excised enough times that it needed fresh blood as much as Edward Cullen and his crew does. So the next step in the unscripted and not-nearly-as-exciting-but equally-dramatic-as-Eclipse saga that is my life, we commenced with The Big Dig and relocated blood vessels from my belly to my chest. After a long-ass surgery and a Hades-esque stay in ICU, the blood vessels bloomed in their new home and all was well. With my highly skilled and kick-ass surgeons, the Drs S, The Big Dig was a screaming success and I seemed to be on the right track.
Revision #1 in August and Revision #2 last week were successful as well, thanks to the original Dr S, who never ceases to amaze me with his surgical talent and artistry. That man is pure genius in the OR. Can’t recommend his work highly enough.
Having survived all these surgeries brings me to the here & now, which is the pursuit of the oophrectomy. Yesterday’s visit to the OB-GYN was a fact-finding mission for a surgery that I know in my heart of hearts I should have. Then the OB-GYN throws me a nasty curveball by questioning why I want to do this.
“Want” isn’t the word I would use for my feelings toward the oophrectomy, but I understand that it is elective compared to an appendectomy, say. But no, I don’t want to do it. I need to do it, and I’m being responsible by volunteering for it. But I certainly don’t want to do it.
Almost as much as I don’t want to have my carefully-thought-out plan upended. I listened carefully as the OB-GYN explained the permanence of removing one’s ovaries, the risks of the surgery, and the menopause it brings on. I’m there, I get it. I’m young for breast cancer and for removing my lady parts, but I’m way past childbearing and have been in menopause for the last 18 months, so I am well-versed in the hell that it is.
She spent a lot of time explaining that surgical menopause is abrupt and intense. Instead of the body gradually decreasing the amount of female hormones at its own pace, it’s like an on/off switch. One day you’re normal, the next day you’re in menopause. I’m still not sure what part of my 18 months of chemically-induced menopause she didn’t get, but suffice to say it was like banging one’s head against the proverbial wall. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Some days there’s not enough alcohol in the world to cope with these detours and speed bumps on the cancer “journey.”
(Ooooh, I think I feel a tshirt slogan coming on.)
The mess of the OB-GYN appointment continued when she was finally satisfied that she’d drilled the cons of the surgery into my head enough to examine me. She determined right away that doing the oophrectomy laproscopically (i.e., through my belly button instead of via an incision) won’t work because of the abdominal scar from The Big Dig. She thinks there’s too much scar tissue and the skin on my abdomen is too tight to allow her to maneuver laproscopically. This is one opinion, and a perfect example of why a pro-active patient solicits more than one. Nothing about my ab scar is unusual or unexpected, just makes a laparoscopic procedure trickier.
So the option to not doing the surgery laparoscopically is making another incision. She wants to make another incision, below the existing 17-inch racetrack. Another incision. Now I’m thinking there aren’t enough cuss words to cope with these detours and speed bumps on the cancer “journey.”
(A companion t-shirt, me thinks.)
Ugh.
A most unsatisfying appointment.
There was just enough time for Amy and me to grab lunch before moving on to my next appointment. And yes, by lunch I mean drinks.
My next appointment entailed removing the two sets of stitches from Revision #2, which I expected, instead of removing them with tweezers or little scissors, there was a blade, which I did not expect. The downside to those super-tiny, uber-tidy mucho-skilled plastic surgeon stitches is that they’re a bit harder to remove than conventional, Frankenstein-style stitches. The blade was like an X-acto knife on steroids, and after the day I’d had, it scared me a little bit. But the good doctor held my hand, soothed my jangled nerves, and tut-tutted over me like the kindest of caregivers, and the stitches were no more. You can barely spot where they used to be because the incisions are so small, and the human pincushion lives to see another day.
But what about those ovaries? What to do about those?
The saga continues.
CANCER SUCKS
Posted: October 20, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue | Tags: cancer battle, cancer diagnosis, new boobs, postaday2011, psychological effects of breast cancer, reconstruction, recovery, the Big Dig 8 CommentsCancer is so not fair.
It just sucks.
It’s such a bitch.
I hate it.
One badly timed comment; one errant remark.
That’s all it takes to go from normal to an emotional wreck. Suddenly I’m on the verge of tears–in front of other people, which is awful, and in front of one person I’d rather take a beating than cry in front of. Pride is a terrible burden sometimes.
Just one comment.
All was going according to plan at my pre-op appointment until one little utterance, slightly misinformed on the doctor’s part and hugely misinterpreted on mine, sent it all akimbo.
I was ready for this next revision. Six days and counting. Schedules rearranged, favors called in, sacrifices made…again.
I had signed up for this revision and was willing to go along with it quite voluntarily, even though it meant more pain and downtime and missing out on some important stuff. Well, important to me anyway: the annual Halloween tennis tournament at our club, which my runnin’ buddy and I won last year and hoped to recapture this year. 
The rest of the tennis season, for which I’ve only played 2 matches total for the entire season (and lost both, BTW, so suck it, everyone). Our regular Sunday morning match & beer-drinking with our buds Christy and John. Lots of tennis will not be played by me while I recover, yet again from yet another revision. The last-minute Halloween rituals, in which costumes are finalized and trick-or-treat dates are secured. All of this will be superseded by yet another recovery. The everyday, average tasks and duties of a regular life. All put on hold, in pursuit of a normalcy that seems ever elusive, just out of reach.
All I want is symmetry and improved shape to my newly created breasts.
Is that really so much to ask?
I’m well past the point of buying into the BS of “Bummer about the cancer but at least you get new boobs.” That dangling carrot didn’t quite pan out for me. Thanks to the ol’ post-mastectomy infection and a much-more-complicated-than-expected reconstruction known as The Big Dig, the prize at the finish line of my cancer “journey” isn’t much of a prize at all. It’s more a reminder that no matter how skilled the surgeon, no matter how many versions of revision I endure, my body is never going to be the same. It’s never going to look like it did before cancer shat all over my head at the ripe old age of 41.
I’m not stupid. I don’t expect my body to look like it did pre-cancer. I don’t expect my life to be carefree and manageable like it was pre-cancer. But I really didn’t think it would be this bad, this hard. I really didn’t think it would be so bloody difficult to deal with the reality of cancer day in and day out.
Sure wish someone would have warned me.
Because I bought into the “get through the scariest, worst experience ever and you’ll live happily ever after.” And silly me, I thought I was dealing with all the repercussions of the post-cancer life. I’ve faced the ugliness head-on. I’ve tucked my head and kept on truckin’. I’ve plastered a smile on my face and counted my blessings. I’ve poured out my feelings — good and bad — in an effort to “deal with it.” I’ve done the research and shown up for all the required appointments. I’ve endured more poking, prodding, and pinching. I’ve suffered through humiliations large and small. I’ve managed the pain and the crazy emotions. I’ve found myself smack-dab in the hell that is chemically-induced menopause and lived to tell about it. I’ve made a point to take my medicine, literally and figuratively, even when it tasted like poison and burned my insides to a crisp. I’ve learned to accept that schedules don’t matter to cancer, that there is no way to predict or prepare for the twists & turns that comprise this cancer “journey.”
I thought I was dealing with it all, and dealing with it quite well.
Silly, silly me.
Thank you, google images.
A day of docs
Posted: October 12, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, menopause | Tags: alcohol and breast cancer, artificially induced menopause, breast reconstruction, DCIS, hormone suppression, invasive ductal carcinoma, Linda McCartney, Lupron, oncology checkup, ovarian suppression, Paget's Disease, the Big Dig 6 CommentsYesterday was my regular check-up with my onco-crush, Dr D. 
He’s so young and so cute ya just want to squeeze him. And he’s a hugger, too, so squeezing him is definitely an option. Me, I’m not much of a hugger, as my book club buddy Laura will tell ya. She manages to get more hugs out of me than anyone. I’m not very touchy-feely by nature, but I’m working on it.
I got a couple of hugs from Dr D yesterday, and since I won’t see him again until January, he said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, too. That makes me panic a little, thinking the holiday madness is upon us and I don’t have enough time to engage in the consumerism that has become de rigueur. I also don’t tend to think that far ahead. I’m more of a small-picture kind of girl who’s learned not to look too far down the road, because there might be something wicked lurking, like a 15mm invasive ductal carcinoma and its nasty friends, DCIS and Paget’s Disease.
Dr D is very big-picture, though, and he’s not at all worried about something wicked lurking down the road. That’s one of the many reasons I like him — every time I see him, he tells me he doesn’t think my cancer is going to come back. That’s music to my ears and a balm for my worried soul. When I told him that I think about recurrence every single day, he tut-tutted and told me to think about something happy instead. Duly noted.
We had a long talk about my love affair with alcohol, as we do at every visit. He knows I’m a fan of the sauce and while he would like to see me cut back because of alcohol being a risk factor for breast cancer, he also advises his patients to live their lives, and he’s realistic about the studies being inconclusive about just how big of a factor alcohol is anyway. I pointed out the tragic and really-not-fair example of Linda McCartney, wife of the famed Beatle, who died from breast cancer even though she was a hard-core vegan, ate 100 percent organic, had no family history of the disease, and never drank. You can’t live much cleaner than that, and the bastard still got her. I’m not vegan, but I am hard-core vegetarian, I eat a lot of organic, I actually like fruits & veg, and had no family history of the bastard disease, so I’m going to enjoy raising a glass here and there. Not every day, like I would like, but that’s my choice. There’s nothing I like more than having a glass of wine while I cook dinner every night. I don’t do that anymore. But I’ll still say cheers to the freaky weekend. And if a certain someone shows up with an unexpected bottle of bubbly because it’s Tuesday, then I say life is for living and pop that cork.
Once we discussed and debated the effect of alcohol on BC patients, we (thankfully) moved on to other topics. He has a very nice bedside manner that involves him spending a good deal of time looking right in his patients’ eyes and asking how the feel. How they are coping. How they are emotionally. He knows that fighting the vicious beast that is cancer is way more than a physical battle, and he spends the time necessary to check on the non-physical battlefield. Smart man. In this process, however, he might have bitten off more than he wanted to chew by asking me if I’m happy with my reconstruction. Cue the $100,000 question.
Do I think my surgeons did a good job with my newly reconstructed chest? Yes. A fantastic job. Does it look 1,000 times better than it did pre-reconstruction? Way. But am I happy? Not so much.
See, we had a conversation very similar to the one last week. And I pointed out to Dr D, as I have to other docs, that I am one of the uncommon BC patients who was happy with her body before cancer ignited a stinking bag of dog-doo on my front porch. Sure there were some things that I wanted to tweak, after having babies, nursing babies, and turning 40, but overall I was happy before. That makes it kinda hard to then be happy with the after side of multiple surgeries and their far-reaching side-effects. I predicted that long after my “journey” is complete and I go back to my pre-cancer life, I will always see the scars instead of the progress. Not to be a Negative Nellie, mind you, but because I am very realistic. I know that the 17-inch scar on my belly will fade. In fact, it already has, and it started out looking way better than a lot of what I’ve seen in doing my research. I know that the “flaps” of skin used to create my breasts will settle into the landscape of my battle-scarred chest. I suspect that some day I will be more “me” and less “it” when it comes to thinking about how cancer has changed my body. But I’m not there yet, and Dr D listened and counseled me.
He gave me a very good piece of advice. So good that Amy jumped up and wrote it down on a piece of paper towel in the exam room. He said, “Focus your attention on the things you have achieved, because you have achieved a lot, but you still have a ways to go.”
He’s right, of course.
I just don’t tend to think that way. I’m way too busy thinking in the here & now (do I have enough bread to pack the kids’ lunches? Did I move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? It’s Mary’s birthday tomorrow; where’s the card I bought for her 4 months ago?). I need to stop a sec and shift from the here & now and the never-ending “to do” list and think for a moment about how far I’ve come and what I’ve achieved. My “journey” has been far from ordinary, routine. As my nurse-friend Laura says, “Everything that could go wrong did, and you were as far from a textbook case as could be.” True dat.
Two really great things came out of my appointment with Dr D, besides the pep talk and his blessing to have a drink. The first is the end of the Lupron shots. Hooray! I endured a year of that blasted drug, and am thrilled to say adios to it. The needle was huge, the drug was of the ilk that burns like fire upon entering the body, and the side-effects were hideous: hot flashes often enough to power a small city. Sweating more than Leon Lett after his infamous fumble against the Dolphins. Mood swings that make people run and hide from me. Joint pain that sometimes catches my breath. Decreased bone density that I can’t feel but fret about anyway. Bye-bye nastiness. Of course the flip side to being done with Lupron injections for hormone suppression means that I have to get serious about the oophorectomy. Gotta get those ovaries removed for good. As much as hate the idea of yet another surgery and yet another recovery, I am of the “slash & burn” mentality when it comes to cancer. Get ’em out so they can’t cause any trouble.
Item #2 in the “this is really great department” was the very last port flush. Hooray! I’ve had my port for almost 18 months, and it has served me well. It’s made my life easier and saved my already-floppy veins from being blown out once and for all. It’s allowed me to endure so many needle sticks that a 20-gauger no longer makes my palms sweat. But I won’t miss it. I will happily bid adieu to the titanium disk sewn into my jugular. I will not miss the monthly flushes with saline and Heparin. I will keep it, though, as a souvenir. As a reminder of all that I’ve achieved. Of all that I’ve endured. Of all the crap that was flung at me but how little of it stuck.
All aboard the freak-out train
Posted: August 24, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, Surgery | Tags: anxiety before surgery, DIEP, fat transfer breast reconstruction, liposuction, moms of young kids with breast cancer, psychological effects of breast cancer, the Big Dig 15 CommentsI’ve been slowly but surely freaking out about this surgery. I was all ready for it this time last week, but it was not to be. Having to wait a week because of pokey construction at the surgical center didn’t make me happy; I don’t like to wait in general, and on something this big and this important, even less. If there’s more than one person in line ahead of me at the grocery store, I consider that a long wait, so imagine what waiting a week has been like.
The wait is over and the day is here. I’m ready.
I prepared in numerous ways, including waking up multiple times each night; making myself half crazy with worry; imagining every possible way the dreaded infection could sneak back into my life; going overboard on stocking the house with groceries; meeting myself coming and going with laundry and errands; and cooking meals that my children won’t eat.
I also did the one things I really should not have done, and that I also did the night before The Big Dig, aka reconstruction: I watched the surgery on youtube.
No wonder I can’t sleep at night.
Why do I do this to myself? I know full good and well that watching that stuff is going to creep me out. Picturing my beloved doc doing those things while I’m sawing logs really creeps me out. I trust him with my life but hate to think of what he’ll be doing to me this morning. I’m gonna be one sore chica.
I scrubbed myself with Hibiclens this morning, to kill off any friendly or hostile bacteria living on my skin. You know your life has changed — and not for the better — when you have a bottle of the Hib in your shower (insert sad face here). 
Here’s the game plan: I’ll show up at the surgery center at 8 a.m. without having had my daily cup of coffee or one bite of food since bedtime (I’m not very pleasant when I’m hungry; I’ll be the first to say it. And BTW, packing my kids’ lunches without being able to have one bite of food myself is cruel. There’s not much in their lunches I would eat anyway, but still). I’ll put on the hospital gown and shower cap, and possibly the compression hose. I’ll get marked up by my doc, which involves standing naked in a small room while he peers at and examines up-close the fattiest parts of my body; he’ll use a Sharpie to annotate the choice cuts that he’ll be removing, and I’ll try to slink into the OR with my dignity intact. I’ll endure the inevitable digging by the anesthesiologist and/or nurse anesthetist in a fruitless attempt to find a vein that doesn’t roll over and play dead; this usually involves multiple pokes and results in a giant bruise. I’ll watch the clock and wonder how much longer until they give me the shot that makes none of this hardship matter as I drift off into a heavy-limbed, blissful sleep. I’ll endure who-knows-what kind of horror show as my doc and his team manipulate and position my sleeping carcass to extract maximum fattiness. Some he will keep, and some he will throw away. The fattiness he keeps will be spun in a centrifuge to extract all the liquid. Then the liquid-free, pure fattiness will be injected into my sunken chest. I’ll wake up in the recovery room several hours later, trying not to barf and thinking how good it will feel to get home and leave the hospital stink behind. I’ll hope that I get home before my kids’ school day ends, and will hopefully, fingers crossed, please, please, please be one step closer to reaching the finish line and being done with the aftermath of breast cancer.
Fingers crossed.
Change of plans
Posted: August 16, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: DIEP, mycobacterium, post-mastectomy infection, REM, the Big Dig 9 CommentsYesterday was pretty crazy. We were stranded Sunday night in Boston because of weather and heavy air traffic in the New York area, and had to spend the night in a hotel. We made the best of it, but being a day behind schedule bugs me and my type-A ways, especially when my to-do list is long and my time for completion is short.
Home sweet home ala Charles Schultz
I’ve traded the beach views for the view of the lake across the street, and while the vacation was fabulous, there’s no place like home. I love the beach and never tire of the sound of the crashing waves, but there is something to be said for the comfort of sleeping in my own bed.
Monday was supposed to be my day to “get ‘er done” and take care of all the pre-op chores. I did indeed get it done, but was half a day behind because instead of hitting the ground running, I was traveling from Boston to Houston. Don’t be jealous when I tell you I spend yesterday unpacking, going through a big stack of mail, sorting the recycling, doing laundry, getting groceries, organizing school supplies, returning phone calls, and giving thanks & treats to our pet sitters.
Today would have been a similarly busy day, but instead of wrapping up last-minute things before the surgery, I was fielding a call from my doc’s office tell me that the surgery had to be postponed. The surgical center that he uses for the type of procedure I’m having is under construction and behind schedule. Did I mention that I don’t like a change of plans?
My brain has been racing with details of the to-do list, and unwelcome thoughts of the surgery keep bulling their way in. I’ve been strangely nervous about this procedure. I expected to be joyful and excited but instead I’m uneasy. This should be a piece of cake compared to the many previous procedures; it’s out-patient for once. It also should signal my approaching the home stretch. I’m not there yet, but with this surgery behind me I would be one step closer.
So why the nerves? As REM would say, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” I have no idea, but perhaps it was my instinct telling me it’s not time, it’s not going to happen. Perhaps it’s the proximity to the start of school and the end of summer. I’m not good with transitions and definitely don’t like change (part of the Type-A package, perhaps?); even though the shift from summer to starting school is usually quite welcome (for me, but not my kids), I’m struggling this time around. I’m all ready, but still feel like there’s not enough time. This procedure has been in my mind a harbinger of the end of summer and the beginning of the elusive pursuit of getting back to “normal.” When I endured The Big Dig in March, I knew that as gee-gantic as that surgery was, it wasn’t the end of reconstruction and that a couple of revisions would be required. Once everything settled, so to speak, after The Big Dig, I was left with a decidedly less-sunken chest and absence of post-mastectomy-infection scar tissue. Things were much improved in the chest region. However, as with most masterpieces, the first draft wasn’t the final draft.
The second draft was scheduled to commence at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow in a hopefully-germ-free surgical center instead of the mega hospitals I’ve been in for the previous gigs. The goal is to reallocate some fat from the ends of the 17-inch belly incision to fill in the not-quite symmetrical boobage. I’m requesting that my doc fine-tunes my belly-button scar, which is kinda grody, and he will also work his magic on the spots of scar tissue along my belly incision. There are several pea-sized spots that are quite the menace: pain, throbbing, and impaired mobility top the list.
I hope that there will also be some cleaning up of the “whale tail” ends of the belly incision. As the moniker suggests, the ends of that big-ass incision look like a whale’s tail, and while I marvel at the giant sea creatures, I don’t want a facsimile on my bod. Thank you, googleimages, for the visual. Imagine that lovely tail upended vertically instead of horizontal and you’ve got a good idea of what the ends of my giant incision look like.
But alas, none of this will happen tomorrow, and I have to wait. In addition to not liking a change of plans, I’m not a big fan of waiting either.
The reason for the delay is legit, yet my cries of “find me another surgery center so we can stay on schedule” went unheeded. It seems that the surgery center I was scheduled for has the right equipment for the fat transfer procedure, and while we certainly could find another gig, there’s no reason to rush it and every reason to wait until all the conditions are right. Not every surgery center/hospital has the stuff my doc needs to suck out my fat, and the one that does have the right stuff isn’t accommodating patients just now.
Three things about my visit to the doc today that were unpleasant, besides the news of the delay. First, he introduced a possibility that I had not considered: infection.
Oh yes, infection.
The very thing that dominated my life for most of the past year is now conveniently shelved in the way-back recesses of my brain. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of re-introducing or re-acquiring an infection. Yet as my doc lovingly pointed out, with me you just never know.
So he’s thinking of sucking the fat out of the dog ears and throwing it away. Sounds great, right? Get rid of the little bulges at either end of the big-ass incision. I’m all for that. But then what do we use to smooth out the not-so-round part of my newly constructed chest?
And that brings us to the second thing that was muy unpleasant during my appointment today: the search for other sources of fat.
I thought I’d plumbed the depths of humiliation with the “grab the fat” game we played more than once in preparation for reconstruction. In this game, the doc asked me to drop my drawers so he could grab my belly fat and determine if it was plump enough and plentiful enough to construct a new set of knockers. In a modified game of Twister, he had me sit, stand, and lean over to see just how much fat I had around my middle. Not once, but twice.
Humiliating doesn’t quite cover it.
But today, it was total humiliation, all humiliation all the time. I was basically splayed out like a deboned chicken on the exam table while he searched and plotted. Ladies and gents, just imagine your least favorite body parts being put under the microscope so to speak. Just consider for a moment being asked to stand up, sit down, and contort your body in the absolute least-flattering ways so that the softest, flabbiest, most-despised parts of your body are on full display. And then have those parts analyzed and calculated to determine just how fatty they are. We go to such lengths to de-emphasize these body parts, yet mine were being trotted out like the prize-winning hog at the state fair.
And in closing, we’ll cover the third and final unpleasant thing about my dr’s appointment today: prophylactic antibiotics.
Yes, that’s right: I used the “A” word. Antibiotics. Again.
I’m going back on my old friends Bactrim and Minocycline as a preventative. Just in case any wily bacterium were thinking of re-establishing a house party on my dime. I’m nauseated just thinking about it. I spent how many days taking the dynamic duo? 267. Yep, 267 straight days of swallowing 2 pills every 12 hours.
Is there no end to this madness?
Stay tuned.
The Pink Underbelly 