Day 157 - Home Sweet Home!

So I am finally home after a long stay at the hospital. I am so happy to be home. I feel like I am on the road to recovery. Every day I can do more and more stuff.

First to catch you up on the now. I am not taking any pain medication. My last pain meds were taken on Sunday at 3pm. So I have a full prescription of oxycodone. :) I am still on my "soaker hose" drip style pain medication which is constantly being infused into my breasts... or where the real ones used to be. I am fully mobile on my own two feet. I can get up and down out of bed and out of a chair. I can sit on the toilet with ease and get off of it with ease. My bowel functions have been normal... more about that later. I still need to take a shower. I must be somewhat stinky by now. My appetite is slowly increasing. I'm working on my range of motion and my exercises that I have been instructed to do over the next few weeks. I do believe that I am now over the proverbial hump. This mastectomy has, yes, been life changing... but not life changing the in the effects of my life has changed. My kids still love me and see nothing different. My husband still loves me and still gets upset and mad at me. I am still the same me. Nothing has changed on the interior and that's what makes me who I am. Only the exterior has changed and really, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

So let me start with Friday. Some of you may already know a lot of the particulars, but many of you don't... so I will clue you in. I am sorry that this has been delayed. I wanted to post more... but Friday was a cluster, Saturday was a little better... but all I could muster up was texting. Sunday I felt awful, but I did manage to post! And yesterday I was too busy trying to get out of the hospital... and you'll find out why it was so difficult to do so. So, sit back and enjoy the reading... as I am in my warm comfy bed with my legs curled up underneath me with my laptop... well on my lap. :)

Friday, June 15 - Booby Day!
We left for the hospital at around 530a. We hit no traffic and if anyone lives around Portland, getting to OHSU can be a pain the rear. It was nice sailing through some of the lights without having to wait for PSU student pedestrians. We parked the car and got to the admission desk at about 6a. We looked in the waiting room and who did we see??? We saw Bill and Evelyn sitting there waiting for us. That's Brad's parents. They said that they weren't coming until 9a when I would already be under and hopefully well underway. The day surgery admission was packed already. I couldn't believe it. We had to wait to get checked in. My name was called and we got all the paperwork taken care of. At around 630 they called us to walk back the the surgery waiting area. (Wow, this is making my stomach all bubbly and nervous!) They brought us down to the curtained area where I would be waiting. It was the same exact bed that I was at when I had my port placement. I stripped down to practically nothing... I had a huge gown on, hospital slippers and my hat. I wanted to keep my head warm while I waited. It took forever for someone to come in to start on anything. The first person I saw was Dr. Thakar, the plastic surgeon. She marked me up... gave her guidelines to where my boobs normal are. Then she went over some stuff in a packet she had given to me previously. I asked some questions and then she was gone. Next who came in... I think was the anesthesiologist. It was the same dude that was going to be the anesthesiologist for my port placement. Crazy. Then he left. Next came the nurse anesthesiologist and she went over some things that she would be doing. She would be giving me some relaxing stuff and then when I was out they would be putting a tube down my throat and giving me my general anesthesia. Fantastic. Next Dr. Naik swung by. I asked her a couple of questions... something about lymph nodes and how they would be taking my port out... would it be through my scar or through the breast. She said that it would be taken out through my breast and she wouldn't have to go through my scar. Brilliant! By that time everyone was running behind. The nurse anthesiologist couldn't believe that an IV line hadn't been started. They tried to get one in and couldn't get on in my arm... well duh, I haven't hydrated myself. In addition, the veins on my right arm are very tiny. So someone finally got an IV in on my wrist - the underside of it. At this point I was getting anxious because of all the people coming in and out and the fact that they couldn't get an IV line in and we were already running late. That made the tears start to flow. Once the IV was in, the nurse anesthetist pumped me full of some relaxing medication and I felt so much better. I just closed my eyes and sort of waited. I don't even remember waving good bye or kissing Brad good bye. But he said I did. The rest... well... is history.

I woke up around 2ish... at least that was the time I actually came to and opened my eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. I felt real sluggish. But glad that I was on the other side. My chest hurt and it hurt to breathe in. I drifted back to sleep, but I could hear everything that was being said. I do recall the nurse who was looking after me that they put a catheter in me and got 300mL of pee out of me before being done. So I did have a catheter! Aha! Oh well. At least I knew that I wouldn't pee in bed. I think it was around 230 or 3 that they decided I was stable enough to get wheeled to my more permanent room. They cleared my drains... 30 for the axillary drain, 50 for the breast drain and 55 for the right one. I made sure that Brad would be the only one there escorting me to my new room. He met me outside the recovery room. It was nice to see him. Then they took me to my room in the main hospital. I was supposed to be in Kohler but for some reason they were all booked up. My first room was a shared room. I was supposed to get a private room. Nevertheless, it was shared room in the corner with no window! Brad wasn't too happy. To make a long story short, he had to call Brooke, the nurse navigator who got in touch with Dr. Naik who got in touch with bed control to fight for a private room. There wasn't even a chair in the room where Brad could sleep. They told him that he would have to sleep in the waiting room. Um, I could barely talk and move. What if I needed help with something? I wouldn't be able to do it. While Brad fought with bed control, Dr. Thakar came in and said that everything looked good and the surgery was a success. She said that Dr. Naik had to take a little more skin from my left breast (which I figured would happen since the tumor was so close to the skin) and she filled the tissue expanders with 100mL of saline. Not a bad start. I guess the right one could have been filled up bigger because there was more tissue and it was the non affected breast. Then Dr. Naik came in and said that everything went well. She talked with Brad and said that she would do her part with bed control. Finally the nurse came in and said something about where Brad was and that there may be a room... I didn't really know what was going on... but I did have my cell phone... so I called him and told him to come back. He did and did what he needed to do. I was coherent enough to text some friends... but my spelling was awful. Sorry!

At around 7, I think, I finally got the okay that a new private room was available for me. They started wheeling me out of the shared room and I got sick. I threw up three times into a bucket. It was just water, but nevertheless, I threw up. It didn't really hurt my chest. They stopped me in the middle of the doorway because they wanted to raise my head up. But I had done the deed. Then they got me to my room where I stayed for the remainder of my stay.

I did manage to pee that first night. That was a nightmare. But I had to go bad and I didn't want a bed pan. The nurse helped me as well as Brad. It was a gradual process to get me half sitting up, to sitting up, to dangling my feet over the bed, to standing up, to walking slowly to the commode. Then I sat and peed! Hooray... then it was back to the bed. That first night I got up several times with the help of the nurse and Brad. It got easier each time though. I am proud that I didn't need a bed pan.

Saturday, June 16
Boy do I really remember Saturday? All I remember is that all through the night the nurses and CNAs kept coming in to bother me to take my vitals. The CNA, Irene, was awful. She tried taking my temperature under my arm - the arm with the stitches under it without first asking. We told her NO! I just had surgery under that arm and to not to touch me there. Then she couldn't figure out the drain set up. What did it really matter? Lord have mercy. She kept me up for 20 minutes while she tried to figure out the drain crap.

Saturday morning, Dr. Thakar came in bright and early doing her rounds at 7a. She asked how I was doing. I told her I was doing good. Dr. Naik also came in to do her rounds as well. She was the oncall surgeon for the weekend. I also got to see plenty of "junior" doctors - the fellows and residents. They all wanted to see me. I ordered breakfast but didn't get much down. Most of it went to Brad. He ate my blueberry muffin. I got my first antibiotic and another dose of my iv form of pain medication. Soon after that I threw it up. We kind of figured that it might be the pain meds that may be making me sick... that I needed to eat something with it. Saturday was really peppered with napping, medication, napping and watching TV. I really don't remember much of it. Nor do I care to. I do remember that I did get a first look at my chest. I didn't know what to expect. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it was going to be. I thought I would look and start to cry and miss what I had. But I have come way to far to miss my boobs. I saw little boobies and a whole lot of stitches which will give me a great scar for the rest of my life. I was kind of shocked at how long the scars are. The one on my left side goes from where the nipple used to be all the way to under my arm... well... a little bit under my arm. The one on the right goes from the center to the edge of where my boob would end. So they are a bit longer than I expected. Hmm... something I might ask the surgeons as to why they seem so much longer. But maybe it's just perception. There are no dressings on my scars. They are covered with this stuff called "dermabond" which makes them water proof. The only dressing is over the drains. I hate drains. They hurt and are uncomfortable when the tubing shifts the wrong way. I know they are a necessary evil, but they suck. Literally.

I am a bit weary right now... more like my fingers. I'll catch you up with Sunday and Monday's antics a little later... :) Also, I am hungry. I smell lunch downstairs and my tummy is grumbling.