Silent Threat: Breast Cancer Chronicles

Days Post Surgery

It's been two weeks and two days since I had surgery.  For the first 3/4 days I was taking pain medication every 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  The first time I got out of my hospital bed to go to the bathroom I was in the most excruciating pain I had ever felt.  The nurse had to help me up and out of bed, her and my mother helped me use the restroom and then helped me back into the bed.  After that, I didn't want to have to go again.  But after that, it wasn't as painful as the first time.  If I didn't take the pain medication when I was supposed to, I would awake in excruciating pain all over again.  It was odd, needing pain medication, as I have never been one to take it, even when prescribed because I had never felt pain that actually warranted the use of medication.  The crazy thing was that when they gave me morphine, that did nothing to relieve the pain, nothing!  We are talking about morphine people and the pain was still there!!  WTF?

Once at home, I needed help getting in and out of bed at times, needed help getting dressed, didn't make a meal for myself the first couple of days, and really didn't do anything but lay around and sleep.  I did shower on my own, with the help of one of those shower chair (I'm not a fan of spending money, so I told my mother just to get me a plastic chair so I could sit and shower on my own, but she opted for a real shower chair cause she's my mother).  I could walk around the house and shifted between laying in bed and in my recliner.  Walking was some what of a chore and you would have thought I was the hunch back of Notre Dame the way I was walking around the house! lol...but hey, I was walking!  Getting up and about was a chore, but I was happy and joking when I was awake.  That's just me!  When I'm not being a B, I usually am happy and joking...lol!

I want to write about things that I didn't expect or things that people would want to know going in, but I didn't expect any of it.  I expected to be calm by the time I made it to the hospital and I was.  I expected to go in and wake up and be fine.  And I was.  The rest, I didn't expect because I didn't know what to expect.  I woke up high, but able to be me.  I was in pain like I've never known.  The pain pills are definitely needed!  I threw up in a trash can not too long after I woke up from surgery.  I don't know if it was the anesthesia that did it or the fact that I downed so much water, juice, etc, too soon after waking up, but it was gross and that I did not expect.  I expected to be sleepy and I was, but I was able to stay up and visit with the fam until they left and then J2 when she came. 

I knew my arm movement would be limited and that I wouldn't be able to sleep in certain positions.  The best thing that ever could have happened was my plastic surgeon coming up with this handy dandy little tube top with velcro up the front,  no need to worry with a shirt to wear home from the hospital.  One thing I didn't expect that has nothing to do with surgery per se is the fact that it's hard to find shirts that are easy to get in and out of post surgery.  Especially if you like being semi attractive around the house!  Coming home I was able to do more than expected, but my movment was clearly still limited.  The way people made it sound, I thought I was going to be in bed and actually on bed rest for at least two weeks.  But the first day after surgery, I was up and moving around (with help of course).  I was happy, happy I was ok, happy it was over, and happy it was no where near as bad as you would have thought it was going to be given the way I had been acting pre surgery!  It was nothing, just like the port and the lymph node biopsy.  I went to sleep and woke up and it was over.  And I was good ol' sarcastic me again...no biggie! 

As of today, I'm bored.  Tired of being in the house.  Tired of not always being able to drive.  Tired of knowing I shouldn't really be driving at all since turning and parking hurt.  God forbid I had to make a sudden anything, if I was able to do it, the pain would be excruciating still!  My motion is still limited, it's still hard to get in and out of clothes that don't button or zip down the middle.  I started weening myself off pain meds on Nov. 17, the Monday after surgery because my plastic surgeon said I could drive once I stopped taking the pain meds.  My drains, I had one on each side, came out on that same Monday.  The pain pump that numbed my chest came out a few days later and by the 20th, I had taken the plastic bandages off my chest.  That night, my plastic surgeon, who was pregnant, had a baby boy and I went to the dr expecting to see her and instead waiting an hour to see her collegue and a nurse.  The nurse pumped up my expanders and boy oh boy was that fun!  They insert a needle into your chest, using a magnent to find the place the needle is to go, and then pump saline into the expanders in my chest.  They will do it again Monday at 9:30.

On the pain medication, I was sleeping all day bcause the meds make you tired.  Once I kicked the pills, I was still sleepy and am still sleepy most of the day I guess because my body is using my energy to rebuild and recoup.  My chest feels tight, like I'm wearing a sports bra two sizes too small.  It's heavier with the expanders in too.  My chest is numb, I don't know if that's the medicine still or if this is how my chest is going to feel from now on.  After cooking for Turkey Day, my left shoulder has ached for days, I over did it, but what can you do! I am trying to do the exercises, but haven't found any that ease the pain in my left shoulder even the slightest bit.  One day I will be back to normal, for now, my biggest complaint if one of boredom.  After two in the house, whatever am I to do?  I think of rearranging or decorating or organizing, but stop short for fear that I will over do it yet again and wind up with both arms in pain. 

At last weigh in, I was 138!  Super wow!  I'm going to have to start exercising as soon as they clear me, I don't want the sky to be the limit on my weight.  140 is just fine.  I'm happy for the gain, but hate that it means I have to build my wardrobe all over when I have such nice suits!  Before I go back to work, I'm going to have to figure out what even fits anymore!  Sad times when your clothes are super tight!  I'm not going to complain too much because I have finally gained weight and I've been trying for so long! I would be happy holding where I am weight wise, but have no clue what the catalyst for the weight gain was to know if I'm still getting it or not. 

Other updates, it's been a month since I stopped taking Taxol, the chemo drug and I look like GI Jane growing her buzz out!  My hair line hasn't come in yet, so I look to me like I have a receding hair line, but I can see it coming in so I'm not worried.  Fingers are crossed that by the two month mark, I won't have to wear a wig and will have enough hair to actually do something with!  Cross those fingers for me! Growing hair from scratch is a funny feeling...it itches like crazy!  Since I'd lost my hair everywhere, you would have thought I had hives the way I'm scratching!  I have no fingernails, so I cannot scratch on my own.  I didn't have a back scratcher in the hospital when it started getting bad and everyone was eating Gladys Knight's with plastic silverware and so I asked for a fork!  It's been my best scratcher yet! haha!  I'm still taking Lyrica, my legs and fingers are still numb.  If I walk to long, my legs still burn.  So hoping that goes away sooner rather than later! 

Next steps are to get expanded every week until I'm all the way expanded.  I go back to the radiation oncologist on Dec. 16th.  My post surgery pathology report came back showing a complete response to the chemo, basically meaning that they did not find any cancer in the tissue they removed during surgery.  I have toyed with skipping radiation on this account, but have come to the conclusion that I'm probably going to suck it up and take it like a woman when it's all said and done for the sake of my health, for the sake of reducing risk of recurrence.  Then seven months after radiation begins, I will have my permanent implants put in.  At some point, I will start taking tamoxifen everyday for five years.  I go back in for herceptin on Dec. 5th and will keep going for herceptin until August of '09, every three weeks.  Everytime it seems like the end is in sight, I realize there is no end.  Life will never be the same again..never.  I'm thankful for the insight, I'm thankful for the reality check, I'm thankful to be alive, and I'm thankful for the chance to get it right, to make a difference.  But I realize that cancer will never be behind me, just perhaps less visible as time goes by.

Fabulous

 

I do not know what post surgery is supposed to feel like because I've never been post surgery before, but the only thing I feel is pain and that clearly is to be expected.  Prior to surgery, I was nervous, I was scared, I was worried about me and how I would take it and how I would relate to others and how they would relate to me.  I was worried I wouldn't have the confidence that I had pre surgery, that I would carry myself some how differently than I had before, that I would be unsure of where I stood in the world having lost yet another symbol of my womanhood.  Would I lose status with those around me, would I still feel like myself, would I still look like myself?  Well guess what I didn't, I did, and I do!

They say (and I wasn't in my right mind, so I can't say that I remember) that I opened my eyes and asked my plastic surgeon how she was doing.  When they told me this my first thought was: How did they expect me to act?"  I'm not going to pretend like I've been the picture of happiness through this all or that I've never shed a tear because that would so not be the case.  The day before surgery (I think it was the day before) I shed more than a tear.  I didn't ball, because I don't cry like that often and never in public, but I let some stuff out;  Told S how I was feeling, told A how I was feeling and pulled it together.  God was with me and I was surrounded by great friends and family.  What more do you need?  My admin gave me a card all about God being with me, exactly what I needed to be reminded of!  I knew everything WAS going to be ok and I could let go.  Let go of the past, let go of my fears, let go of the anxiety and just be again.  An amazing feeling.  Like I said, it took me until today to let go and just be, but boy does it feel good!  Now, as I begin the process of reconstruction, of rebuilding, I can rebuild myself, I can become anyone I want to be, I can practice being the me I am, I can add, take away as needed, I feel like I have a clean slate, a new start a chance to make me who I want to be as opposed to who I am.  I don't have to start from scratch, now I have a foundation.  I know more about what I do and don't want from life and I'm more than comfortable letting people know either way.  What a great opportunity to make my life, MY LIFE. 

The reason this post is entitled fabulous is because that is how I feel.  I woke up happy, well except when the first nurse I've seen denied me pain meds because I was holding my breath since the pain of chest expansion was excruciating..."we are monitoring your breathing, if you would breathe right, we could give you some pain meds."  "B it hurts to breathe, so if you give me pain meds, then I will stop holding my effin breath..now get me some meds or get someone who will."  Needless to say I ended up with a male nurse who got me some meds.  Other than that, like with the two other surgeries and the biopsies and most of the tests I've had, I woke up thinking "is that it?"  Yeah, I was in pain and I was sleepy and delerious, but I was still me.  As soon as I got to my room, I was cracking jokes and tellin the story about the nurse who tried to make me flip out in the recovery room.  The day of, I don't remember getting much sleep.  I immediately called my brothers and called S.  Then I sat around and watched TV and talked to Re, my mother and father. MY came by too and brought flowers, so pretty, all red, my favorite color!  Then she had a funny story for the camera..she came in and started looking for me.  She told a hospital employee she was there to visit a patient and they sent her "that way."  She went that way and ended up in a room with drs and nurses putting on gloves and scrubs.  She looked around nervously and realized she was in the operating room and the drs were gearing up for surgery!  She told them she was looking for me and they said "Oh yeah, we saw her in here this morning."  I guess they pointed her in the right direction cause she made it up.  Hilarious!  Those are the kinds of things I wanna hear about!  After they left, J2 came by and we talked girl talk, not much cancer talk at all.  Just catching up on crazy stories about crazy people.  I slept on and off that night, chatting up the nurses every time they came in to interupt my half sleep for meds, vitals, just to check on me and watched TV when I wasn't sleep.

The next morning, I saw my plastic surgeon, bright and early and she was happy and peppy as ever!  That's why I love my drs, they are always in such great spirits, how can I be in any other spirit??  She looked me over and told me I was good to go if I wanted to that afternoon.  Of course I wanted to!  I couldn't wait to be in my own house, in my own bed, able to do whatever I wanted when I wanted.  I got my herceptin there at the hospital and got ready to leave.  Getting situated at home wasn't easy, it hurt like hell to move around, you clearly need your back for sitting and laying down and moving around, since your back is the back of your chest, doing back related stuff isn't the most comfortable thing when you've had surgery on your chest and your arm movement is restricted. 

Two Days and Counting (Still a Little Crazy)

 

Today was my last day at work before surgery on Thursday.  I've been super emotional (for me anyway) and wanted to try to document my feelings.  This is going to be one of the hardest things I write because I do not display, explain, or acknowledge feelings well.  I'm independent, always have been.  I'm nonchalant about everything for the most part and even when I do feel something other than happiness or anger, I don't generally let anyone see that side of me.  Honesty dealing with feelings is not something I do well at all.  I don't like letting people know how I feel because then your feelings can be used against you.  I don't like to feel for/care for people because then you can be taken advantage of and disappointed when people don't act/react the way you think they should.  All that emotional ineptitude aside, these past weeks have been crazy for me because I'm feeling things that I don't think I've ever felt and if I have felt anyway close to this before, I don't recall.

I'm scared in a way that's hard to describe when I'm not having one of what I call my mini break downs.  Scared that I'm putting my life and my physical appearance in the hands of others.  All I can do is have faith.  Scared that for once in my life, after all is said and done, I could have real regrets or wlda, clda, shlda thoughts.  I've made a rational decision that I feel is best for me, based on all the information available to me, risks, benefits, alternatives, and peace of mind considered.  I feel like I'm doing the right thing.  Practically though, I'm realizing that, like with my hair, I'm about to give up something that society has told me for so long makes me a woman.  My breasts, after this is over, will be man made and won't look anything like they should for more than 8 months.  I'm tripping over how I'm going to react to that.  I'm young, I'm attractive, I've always been comfortable and confident in my appearance and I wonder if I'm strong enough to maintain that confidence through this. I've never really been insecure about myself.  I've never questioned my self worth before and now I'm wondering how to deal with feeling like I'm not going to be a woman.  Just when I'm starting to feel like myself again, just when I've become comfortable with my beauty as a bald head chick, my hair is growing back and my breasts are about to be cut off.  I guess it just hit me that I'm not going to be whole for a while to come. 

I'm dealing with this in stages, I know the big picture, I know all of the steps, but I deal with and focus on one step at a time.  Now that I'm switching from chemo to surgery, I'm realizing that the journey isn't ending, it's just changing.  Trading no hair for no breasts.  I'm going to have to get used to being me with an altered body and I'm going to have to work to maintain my confidence, to maintain my strength and to remember who I am.  Right now, I'm just wondering why anyone would want to be around me.  I'm a burden on everyone, whether it's cause they have to alter their lives to accomodate doctors appointments, impromtu illness, or the emotional strain of worrying about me, worrying about losing me, worrying about me losing myself.  Why would anyone want to stand beside me, behind me, when I'm dragging so much nonsense around with me?  Why when it's so much easier to have friends who don't have cancer?  There are other people in the world just as cute, just as nice, just as cool and smart, why hang around "cancer girl?"  I'm so worried about how I'm going to feel about myself after surgery, that I really wish I could just tell everybody to go away and come back when I'm me again.  When this is all over and I don't need help, don't need to cry, don't look like some semblence of my former self.  I do not want people to see me down, I don't want to be weak, I don't want to be vulnerable, and I don't want to be disappointed by expecting people to be here in a certain way and they don't live up to those expectations. 

I feel like I'm going to have enough going on just trying to be okay with me, I don't want to worry about whether other people are okay with me.  I don't want to worry about whether I'm ok with other people.  I really just want to push everyone away and find some way to do this on my own so that people won't see me scared, down, and weak.  A told me that I have to stop being the person that is there for everyone else and let those around me be there for me, but how do I do that?  I know the people around me have their own problems, how can I ask them to watch me break down?  That only adds to their strain.  Besides, I'm not one to talk emotional shop, so how do I do this?  When I get sad, I remove myself from the presence of others.  How the hell am I supposed to tell those around me I'm scared?  I thought about it a few times and then stopped myself everytime I start getting ready to talk.  I don't even know how to explain it.  I've made my decision.  I know it's the right decision, but damn it, I don't want any of this!  It doesn't matter why I have to make such a decision right now, I do and I have.  It's not going to make it any better if I break down, but I just don't want to do this.  I don't want to worry about how people are going to look at me afterwards.  I don't want to worry about how I'm going to look at myself afterwards.  I don't know how to control the thoughts running through  my mind because I'm superimposing my insecurities on those around me.  Now more than ever, I need to feel like other people still find me attractive, still think I'm cute, still think I resemble me.  Even though I know that I am and i know that the people who really care about me care regardless, I can't help but thinking it doesn't make sense.  What's the point in being around a woman that's not a woman anymore?  Someone that has to damn near live in the drs office.  That will be going through some form of treatment for yrs to come.  Why would anyone put themselves through this?  Why not just find someone to replace me and have an easier life without me? 

(I wonder if I did this post justice?  I feel like on the surface I've covered what was going on in my mind.  It's all there, not so deep, but it's there.  For the first time in my life I was needy and insecure and for me, that was rock bottom.  Before, I would ask a question like "are you still gonna love me" and it was a joke in every sense, before I knew the answer was yes or I didn't care if the answer was no.  At the time I wrote this, I asked that very question, knowing the answer was yes, but scared that the reality of yes came with a change in perception that made me very uncomfortable.  Of course the people that truly love me were going to love me regardless of my outward appearance, that's a given.  But love, want, like, desire, these are all different things.  You can have one without the other.  When it all boils down to it and I get REAL with myself, it was never love that I was worried about.  It was all the other variables that worried me.  Now that I'm on the other side of surgery, I see that I was a fool all along.  Nothing's changed. The people that loved me, still do.  The people that liked me still do.  The people that harbor feelings of want and desire, still harbor those same feelings.  Just like when I lost my hair, I hyped myself up and worried myself to death about nothing.  On the other side of surgery though, I've come full circle back to what I've always known and what people tried to tell me when I was trippin: I'm happy with me.  I look in the mirror at my scars and only see the cute chick I've always been.  If others don't see that when they look at me...screw em!  I'm stronger and deeper than ever they will be and that's their loss, not mine!  At this point, I have too many battle scars to list and as I sit and type this, I wear them with pride.  I'm fighting like a girl and kicking cancer's ass! To all the nonsense, I shrug.  No big deal...bring it!).

Going a Little Crazy

This surgery ish is driving me crazy.  I don't like the thought of needing help.  I don't want help and for sure don't want to need it.  I don't want to worry or burden those around and that's what I'm feeling like right now.  Add to that, the fact that I'm struggling with the thought of not being a complete woman for at least a year to come.  I know that those around me who truly love me, do not love me for my breast.  They are small anyway, not too much to speak of at all.  I know that those who truly love me are the ones that are still here and with me now, but I don't want certain people to be around to see me down like this first of all.  Second of all, I don't want to add to the struggles of life that people are already going through without adding my shit to theirs.  Unfortunately, those that are still here aren't going any where, so I'm just a burden that can't be put aside. 

There are not many things that I am afraid of, my biggest fear is permanence.  I don't like making decisions that have a permanent affect on my life.  I've made my decision as it relates to surgery and permanent or not, I'm sticking with it.  But it's a hard thing to swallow because not only is this a permanent move, but it's a permanent move that is going to change me physically.  I'm gonna look kinda crazy for a while, then when things start to normalize in about 7/8 months, I won't have nipples even when I have my implanted breasts in place.  I can't really describe how I'm feeling right now cause I'm emotionally slow to say the least and can't even figure out for myself what I'm feeling about all this.  Before I just wanted it to be here and over so I could rest.  Now, I'm just scared that I'm not gonna be ok with myself after it's all over.  My hair I know will grow back.  Once I come out thursday, my breasts never will.  Like with the hair, I have to get over the notion that has been instilled in me for so long that breasts make me a woman.  Losing my hair didn't make me less of one and I know deep down that trading my breasts for my life won't make me less of a woman.  It will actually make me more of a woman as I'm doing what most women will never have to do, giving up a part of me, a part of womanhood that I can never get back and going on with life.  Not like nothing happened, not like nothings changed, but just like life is life and that's that.