Post-Surgery Thoughts

I had surgery 12 hours ago and now I'm at home trying to figure out how I feel.

I came out of the anasthetic feeling pain and fear. Terrified to look down. I began asking the nurse sitting beside me questions and looking around the room. She was a total bitch! She tells me 'lay down and respect everyones privacy, they are trying to recover too' not even glancing up from her book. God forbid she slow the progress of her reading to do her job! I lifted my blanket to look down and see what I am working with now after surgery, she reaches with one hand and pulls my blanket back up to my chin. I ask where my mom is and she says 'You are in recovery'... Thats not what I asked, I want to say 'Really?! I thought I was in hell' instead I repeat myself asking where my mom is, then ask if she has been called. She says that if they called everyone patients wanted they'd be on the phone all day. I feel my face going red and I want to let her know that if she wants to be a nurse she should be nice to people and if she wants to be a whore we are only ten minutes from higgins and main. I hold back.

My oxygen levels were dropping to just under 80, I am frustrated and start crying. Head nurse bitch says to take a deep breath, I do and my oxygen goes up. She then takes the oxygen mask off, STILL NOT LOOKING UP FROM HER BOOK, and says to let her know when  I am done crying so I don't dirty the mask. I get an uncontrollable urge to grab her by the hair and shove her face into my freshly sliced up breast so she realizes exactly what I am dealing with. Again I hold back.

Once my oxygen is staying up I get to go back to the area I started in and ask them to page my mom. They do, she comes. A few hours later I was heading for home!

My family and friends have been incredible! I returned home to find a package from a friend hanging on the front door. A friend spent the entire evening with my family and I. My family took care of my every need. My breast is gross, deflated with a drain hanging out - I focus on being healthy and strong...

Today is my First Surgery...

So... Today is the day! My mom is driving me to the hospital as I am writing this. I have butterflies in my stomach, not nervous really for surgery, more excited to get this underway... Still nervous about waking up after with a chest I won't recognize.

I find it incredible how much can happen in just 24 hours. I have moved out of my own cute Wolseley apartment and back home with my parents, i did my last shift as a Coordinator at my old job, did a shift at my new job and will be changing my bra size on the right side in just a couple of hours.

As I sit beside my mom in this car she does her nervous chatter, speaking quickly and constantly about everything other than surgery... I want to mention how much I appreciate silence, instead I just keep quiet and nod and agree with everything. I know as we get closer to the hospital she will start asking the infamous 'how are you feeling?' It seems that everyone asks this question in a strange, almost secretive, tone. I want to say 'I feel fine! Nothing has happened to me yet... Come back for the truth around 2 this afternoon when I'm awake afterward!' However I don't think today is the day to start pissing people off so I just say 'fine.'

I have an urge to yell and scream and cry... To be mean to everyone for no good reason. I will hold back though because I am positive this is stemming from not being allowed to have coffee this morning.

I will keep my mouth closed, heart open, and try to just appreciate that the surgery will be starting in a couple of hours and my friends and family are the way they are because they care. I Love Them!

Signing off now... Wish me luck!

Inspiration

It has been a while since my last blog... I started writing this wanting to be a positive example of how to cope with stress - I haven't written because I may put on a good show, but my positivity wavers.

I have had many MANY changes happening all at once. I have got a great new job, great but mentally exhausting trying to learn a whole new system. I have gone out with a great guy twice and am looking forward to our third get together. I also had an ultrasound done to determine the physical characteristics and depths of my tumors.

I am now just four days away from surgery. Sleeping on my stomach or side is difficult, it feels like i have a baseball and a few stray golf balls wedged in my bra, but still I try to keep telling myself I should be happy because it is not cancer and they will be removed.

While I can't wait to get these out I feel nervous... Not scared of surgery or the pain, but scared of what it might feel like to wake up literally missing a piece of me - tumor or not. I am going to be missing more than half of my right breast... how will I make it look normal? I am going to have scars. I am 26 and single. I will look down and see something totally different than what I have been used to seeing. Tears well up in my eyes thinking about waking up after surgery with a very different body.

i want to inspire people with my writing, but I don't feel all that inspirational. I am telling myself that the joy is not in the destination but in the journey; Struggle is just a part of success. I will keep telling myself this until I believe it. But until then I will trust in all of the wonderful people around me, who are encouraging me, and who will believe the journey is the part to remember and appreciate, the people who tell me I can worry about the destination when I get there. I love my family and friends.

Priorities

i am testing out trying to send a blog through my email on my phone... Hopefully this works! please forgive any bad grammar, capitalizing on my phone is a pain! Here we go:

i had a pretty awesome weekend filled with lots of random experiences... Went on an impromptu 'date' which wasnt really a date but i am calling it that. I talked with an old friend a few weeks ago and we have been wanting to catch up but hadnt been able to work it out, friday night i texted him asking if he wanted to get together. He said yes (score lol). I went to his place, ate some pizza, had a few drinks and was invited to a fire at his neighbors house.

i am realizing now as i write that much of this story is going to need to be censored, thus not really being that interesting - long story short: a woman chased a cat around and fell asleep in the neighbors porch, fire went well into the morning, wasnt in a great neighborhood so i stayed at my friends house rather than walking home, got a kiss *blush*, in the morning went for breakfast, was detoured a bit by police tape due to a shooting, wandered through some of the crime scene getting to the restaurant, played connect 4 in the restaurant (winning every game), met a real life contortionist along with other interesting folks & wound up watching the contortionists film... Lot's of laughs-i am contemplating persuing a real date with this old friend of mine...

later that evening my sister & i decide last minute to camp out in libau for a girlfriend's birthday. We had a great time-beautiful birthday girl, awesome people, cute dogs, fireworks, a really cool party barn & the night ended with the sun coming up while we ate chips behind my sisters car...

the point of these stories is that life is what you make it & it is so important to just have fun regardless of the background stressors that will always exist. Through my health stuff people have been so supportive, yet spending time with friends & family is something i neglect at times. It makes no sense? I have decided to re-prioritize life...

So the Journey Continues!

So I start my morning pretty much the same as always, sleep as late as possible and rush off to work making it there at 8:02... not bad. For those of you who don't know I am a manager of a residence for individuals with disabilities. I have always promised to be honest with the people I support about everything and I'm feeling guilty that I haven't yet given them an explanation for why I've been off work with so many appointments lately. I think in my head "How am I going to make this sound like a great thing without mentioning anything that will worry them."

I take a deep breath and head downstairs to talk with the lady who has been worrying the most. I ask her if we can talk for a minute, she says "I don't know, is it a good talk or a bad talk?" GREAT ANSWER!! haha.... I say good, I want to catch up, I missed her over the weekend etc etc. We catch up on small talk then I explain that after all these appointments the doctor says all I need is a couple surgeries and I'll be good to go. She says "then you won't be so tired and grumpy anymore?!" With an excited grin on her face... Gotta love honesty! I hadn't realized that I was tired and grumpy so I tell her that the being tired and grumpy will end immediately because of the great news I got... She's thrilled! I have similar conversations with the other two gentlemen who live in the house... phew, it went well!

My day goes on - work, visit my ex who is now taking care of my cats, go to soccer practice and return to work to do the sleepover. I bring my pre-op questionnaire with me with good intentions of filling it out. I sit and stare at it and decide to first do the math... My first surgery is August 31st, the package states clearly "RETURN TO THE PRE-OPERATIVE CLINIC A MINIMUM OF THREE WEEKS PRIOR TO SURGERY" That would give me until August 10th... why not procrastinate and live in denial for one more week? I put the package away and head downstairs to talk to the other overnight staff...

She and I catch up a little and begin joking about the positives of my whole situation:

1) GREAT medications post surgery that will allow me to say absurdly inappropriate comments without an ounce of regret until the meds wear off.

2) Free breast augmentation.

3) Possibly a free tummy tuck.

4) I may have found the cause of breast tumors, afterall they say cell phones cause brain cancer - this may be true for those who talk on it a lot, I tend to spend my time storing it in my bra... strange coincidence!

5) Nausea after surgery may help me lose more weight.

6) Four weeks off work after each surgery.

I'm positive this conversation was much more beneficial to me than filling out a questionnaire!

Overall: Good Day Today!

My Very First Blog & Why - CANCER-FREE!!

So... where to start?! I am a healthy 26 year old woman... haven't given much thought to my health since it's never been in any sort of serious distress other than your average scraped knee, broken bone, hurting heart types of typical growing pains...

On July 12 around 4am I woke up with severe pain in my right breast and left underarm. I also had what looked like some type of blockage near the surface in a vein (or maybe artery??) of my right breast causing the veins to darken and protrude. I had had a large lump in the right breast for some time however had been told years earlier it was nothing to worry about and never really thought about it again. This particular morning it seemed to have literally grown overnight along with some new lumps on the left side near my underarm.

I did not want to scare anyone by making phone calls at that time of the morning so pulled my courage together and walked to the hospital. To make a long story short hospital staff sent me to another hospital where they simply advised me to see my family doctor ASAP. One small problem... I hadn't had a family doctor in years! That morning I called a clinic I have gone to periodically and asked to be seen by a physician and they agreed (begrudgingly) to make an appointment with me on July 14th. I informed my work and a couple of close friends about this but chose not to tell my family as I did not want to cause them any undue stress if this was nothing to worry about.

July 14th came and I went to the appointment first thing in the morning. The doctor did a breast exam and told me the lump in the right side presents as being approximately 10cm x 12cm, he continues on to say he has never seen a lump this large which has not been cancer. I am alone in the doctor's office with a brave face on. He continues feeling it and says "Wow this is large." I decide to add in some comic relief and tell him "You're not the first person to touch me there and say that!" He laughs; I'm strangely surprised. He says that he'd like to be my family physician even though he is not actually accepting patients however he finds my lumps "interesting" and would like to follow-up on them. "Interesting" - That's one word for them!

He fills out a diagram of breasts with x's marking affected areas and sends me to reception with it and tells me to tell them it is URGENT. I follow this direction, the receptionist stamps a huge, red URGENT stamp on the paper... then stamps it again... then one last time for good measure:

URGENT
URGENT
URGENT

I return to his office to set up a "meet and greet" so he can officially call me his patient, then leave to make a brave trek home. On the way home I call my work-cry, call a friend-bawl, call my mom-sob. I get home, sit with my cats, cats begin cuddling, I get more weepy and cry some more, then decide to sit on the step outside to wait for my mom and sister to rescue me, I just wanted to get out of my own skin. My mom wants to keep me busy... we drop my sister off to work, stop at a scrapbooking store, go visit my grandma in the nursing home, stop at a farmers market. I finally get to my parents house and begin researching... ironically I found a quote that says "If you trust Google more than your doctor it is time to get a new doctor." I don't believe this and continue googling looking for anyone who has ever written about have a lump that is 10cm x 12cm, but I find no one.

The next two weeks is filled with appointments - mammogram, specialist, biopsies, specialist, specialist... everything on an "URGENT" basis. Friends and family are constantly trying to reassure me but of course no amount of reassurance helps when no one knows for sure what is going on inside my body. YES - I understand I may be fine, NO - it doesn't make the wait easier. I receive the mammogram results - The lumps are solid (aka tumors), not fluid filled (aka cysts), 7cm in diameter. I'm given a specialist appointment in a couple of days. The doctor says "We don't know that it's cancer yet so don't go driving off a bridge" I inform the doctor the only thing that would make me drive off a bridge would be pregnancy - cancer you can get rid of. We all laugh - again, strange.

I tell a girlfriend of mine that if this is cancer I am starting a blog... people need to feel like someone out there has been through this and it's not the end of the world. I also let her know that I could act as a public awareness dummy - feel my left breast, several teeny barely there lumps; feel my right breast, if you don't take care of the teeny lumps it turns into one large disgusting mass making it impossible to fit into your bra. I also let her know she can let people know I'm okay with them asking to feel, it's something everyone seems to want to ask but no one (except her) has had the balls. Surprisingly many people took us up on this, not even in a creepy I want to feel boobies way, but in a "OMG I have never felt a lump, what's it like, what does it look like, does it hurt, how big is it," kind of way. I'm happy to make some good come out of this weird growth.

On July 30th I go in to see the specialist for the results of the biopsies that were performed. -No sign of cancerous cells!!! WOW! Biggest smile I've ever mustered up. I have never felt this much relief, I was so relieved I was actually nauseated and sick to my stomach, I text everyone I can think of and begin making plans for a celebration. I'm informed that I will need to have surgeries on each side followed by reconstructive augmentation. I ask how long I would need to be off work for each surgery and I'm told a minimum of 4 weeks after each surgery and a minimum of 3 surgeries. He then cracks a joke - "Do you have a boyfriend?" I say "No", he says "Well good, this will keep it that way!" Crude, but I like it - Hey doc, whatever you say, I'm Cancer-Free!!

So I spend August long celebrating with family and friends and get back to the real world Monday night. I begin thinking, why would I not start a blog just because it's not cancer? I'm sure there are plenty of women sick with worry over a lump that could very well be something a few surgeries can fix. Who says there can only be information on cancerous lumps anyway? I decide to write this to give some hope. I want to track my day to day life for people who may be in this position. I'm scared of losing my breasts, I'm scared of the pain surgery will bring, but still can't get rid of the smile that says "cancer-free!"

So please, keep coming back, I'll keep writing my highs and lows.... I may even add in some juicy stories of hot dates, arguments with friends, or anything else that may be of interest... For now, this is my start and the reason for it.