Day 166 - Tissue Expanders (and pictures)

Today I had a follow up appointment with the reconstructive team. The appointment was for the removal of the last drain, but since I had that taken out on Monday, it became my first Fill appointment! I decided to keep the appointment just in case and to have the doctor or whoever it was look at my incisions and stuff. Lucky me, I got Jason again. Jason said that my wounds look good and everything is healing nicely. I did have some questions for him.

1. There's a place on my chest wall (near the cleavage area) where on the right side it feels awful, dull ache or pain... is it normal? He says that it's normal. It can be from the tissue expander and that with a fill, it can get better or it can get worse. However, there is a drug that can help with that soreness. It's called, Gabapentin, and what it does is blocks the nerve receptors by blocking the sodium. This drug is something that I would take on a regular basis three times a day for several weeks.
2. Are there any specific excercises I should be doing with the shoulder and arm because I am dealing with cording or Axillary Web Syndrome (AWS)? He says that I should be walking my fingers up the wall. When it starts to hurt, I need to back down and then stretch the arm/shoulder that way. Then the next time, I can go a little further. It should not hurt when stretching.
3. Chest wall tightness, how long will it be that way? He says it is normal for the chest wall to be tight for several months. He says that the swollen chest area can last for several weeks and it will take time to heal. For the next 6 weeks I shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting. He says that after 6 weeks, my incisions are only 70% healed and strong enough. That's amazing!
4. Shower facing front? He says that now that I am two weeks past surgery, I can face front and let the water hit my chest. Before, I showered with the nozzle pointed at my back. It's a little hard to wash off the soap that way. :-)
5. Muscle spasms - He says that I could have muscle spasms. They can bet treated with valium or ativan. Interesting... ativan. I had a big one last night as I was walking into a store. I thought there was a bug crawling on me or in me. It freaked the heck out of me!

Then it was time to get my first of several fills. So my tissue expanders are 350cc's. They expand them even bigger than that... about 20% bigger after I say "Done." When I was reading my pathology report, I did see that the weight of my breast tissue they took out was about 220g or so. But breast tissue goes under the arm and up the chest. So who knows how much breast tissue would have made the "cup" size. Basically, it looks like my tissue expanders will be going to about 420cc's when all is said and done. I am just going for a full C cup. That's all I really want. I liked my B, but it didn't fit some of the clothes I had. So my first fill was 25cc's. Jason used the medical "stud finder" which has a strong magnet on it to find the port. He searched for it on the vertical and horizontal access. I told him where it will most likely be because I can feel the port area through my skin. I was right on the mark too! Then when he found it, he was going to disinfect the area with betadine... um, no! That's a derivative of iodine. He laughed and said, "That's right. I saw you were allergic to it." Then he used alcohol. Next he took a long needle (like the needle for an epidural) and poked me. I didn't feel the poke, but the poke was uncomfortable because it was going right into the tissue expander (TE). Then he retracted some fluid - it came out blue. Dr. Thaker likes to put a dye in the expander so when they expand, they know they've hit their mark. Then he started the fill very slowly... one cc at a time. Finally he was done. I could feel the TE getting ever so much bigger. My breast does feel a bit heavier. Then it was time for the left side. Again, I hit my mark with where the port was. He also looked at my little blister on my chest. He said it's healing nicely, but wants it to be a little more healed before they start injecting 100cc's into the TE. That's fine by me! So while he was injecting the saline in the left breast, I could feel my skin expanding a bit. So far, my boobies feel good. But we'll see what tomorrow brings. Jason says that tomorrow I could be feeling sore. But today I feel great. No pain, no gain right?

And as I promised, here are a few pictures:

Getting ready for surgery (I had my boobies!)

Post mastectomy (the very next day).
You can see the drains attached to the side of my gown.

Here's my pain ball, which became a pain in the neck.

These are the little "soaker hose" tubes that were wrapped in my breast cavity.
About 12" was inside of me and if you looked closely, you could see the little holes!

This is what the tissue expander looks like. The round port is metal.
That's where the saline is injected. This demo one is 750cc's.

Here's a silicone implant.
They now have "gummi" implants which are now being used in Europe.

Here's the medical "Stud Finder".
Magnet is on the right.

Here's how much hair I have... I actually have more.
This picture was taken just a few days ago, if you can believe it.

So, there you have it. My mom left on her flight today back to Arizona, so it's nice to have a quiet house. I can relax and take a nap! :)

Until next time... oh yes, my next appointment for an expand is next Thursday!

Day 67

Today was a decent but not so decent day. I went back to work. It was a Wednesday. However I wasn't feeling too good. I didn't feel good when I woke up, but yet I still forced myself to go to work. I got to work and wished I hadn't stepped foot into the joint. It wasn't because of my team. It was because my stomach was just in pieces. I had to go to the bathroom. The first time it was fine. The second time, not really and the third time, definitely not. (I will leave it up to your imagination, however, it was not coming up.) So I popped one of my Immodium AD pills that I carry around with me at all times. There are a few pills I take with me... one is ativan, the other is immodium and the third is zantac. You never know when you might need one or all three! Ha.

After taking my pill, I got some relief. I didn't drink too much water on Wednesday because water was making my stomach ill, so I relied on hot apple cider, sprite and apple juice. I had a great lunch... Don Pedros... a taco salad. It tasted so good going down....

I got home late... around 1:45p. When I got home, I didn't feel too hot. I went to bed to take a nap and actually got about an hour of sleep. When I got up, I still didn't feel too good. It was around 4 that I finally got sick and threw up. I got to see what my lunch looked like about 3 hours later. I felt a little better... but really not that great. All I could do was just stand at the kitchen counter with my head down. I felt sick, but I just didn't understand why. Maybe it was because I was anxious... then I told Brad that I was going to go upstairs and take something. I got up there just in time to throw up again. When I came downstairs, I felt soooo much better. Thank goodness I decided to wait to take compazine. I managed to swallow my pill. Not because of the pill, but because I had nothing in my stomach, I immediately felt better. I started dinner. We had pecan encrusted catfish with sweet potato mashed potatoes. It was one of the meals we received. That was sooo delicious. It was much better than the meatball risotto. I opted not to have any of the pecan butter due to the fact my stomach was still a bit queasy. And I didn't make the steamed broccoli because of my stomach. But what I did have was so good. It's my favorite so far. I think this weekend we'll have the beef stroganoff. I like stroganoff.

I went to bed on time. But before I did, I took a half an ativan just to make sure I wouldn't feel ill.

Day 66

Today wasn't so bad. It wasn't great but it was decent. I stayed home today from work. I worked from home and also "played" from home. I don't mean that I played hookey, but I just spent some time on facebook and searching for dumb things online. I did have a good lunch. I had chicken lo mein. It was good. I didn't finish all of the great meal, so there's still some sitting in the refrigerator waiting for the next time I feel like eating. I did manage to keep my food down for most of the day. But towards the afternoon I started feeling sick again. I managed to keep everything down until after Brad got home. I took an ativan to help with the nausea. I don't know if the nausea is real or self inflicted. I don't know if I am just getting anxious because I know the next round of chemo is just a week away. I mean, the next round should be the easier of the three types of chemo. I guess it's just the unknown. I hate it. I really do. I hate the fact that I have to live day to day in fear of getting sick or not knowing if I will be able to keep something down. I hate the fact that my daughter asks me if I am feeling better or if I am feeling sick. I hate the feeling of being out of control. I am not beating myself up about this issue... it's just something that I am feeling right now. I just don't like being sick. It sucks. I don't like feeling like I'm going to have to run to the bathroom. It's really crazy because I find that water makes me sick and I am supposed to hydrate myself. So I am trying to keep hydrated by drinking juice and soda.

So I was looking at my breast today just before getting into the shower. I am happy but not happy that it continues to change in shape and form. The happy side... the tumor is definitely getting smaller. The nipple continues to pop out and the skin around the nipple is also getting more pliable. I can tell that the tumor is getting smaller because when I touch the tumor it's smaller. I am happy for this. What I don't really like is that since the tumor is getting smaller, my boob is getting smaller. I know silly thing. But I can't believe how tiny I am now! LOL. Thank goodness I will be getting bigger ones soon! hahahaha!

Another funny thing happened today. I was done with my shower and I was drying myself off... and out of habit I took my towel and was going to dry my hair! Ha! I haven't dried any hair in the past 6 weeks. Why would I do that now?

Tonight it was so sweet. I put Elaina down for bed. She was tired. She stared up at me with those big brown eyes and gave me a big smile. I picked her up and got to rock her to sleep. It is the first time in ages that I have gotten to rock her. She put her head on my shoulder and just layed there. She fell asleep on my shoulder. It felt so nice to have her snuggle with me. It made my day.

Day 65

5DPC was a little better than previous weeks. It started off really ill. I was puking in the middle of the night. But it did seem a little better. I managed to eat quite a bit during the morning hours and held it all down. However, around 2p, it all started to go the wrong direction. Maybe it was because I had too much to eat for lunch. I have no idea. I do know that I was craving wonton soup. Brad was too funny, he said that maybe I'm "coming out of it" because I was craving chinese food. But I wasn't in the mood to venture out. So I had some White Castle cheeseburgers. I think that was my falling. It wasn't long after I ate those that I started to feel a little nauseous. So I took some compazine and benadryl in hopes to keep whatever I had down. It didn't help because I did end up tossing my cookies. I even took some atavan, but that didn't help much either. Finally I decided to make some white rice. That helped my tummy settle. Maybe I am just hungry and that's why I get so sick. I will have to remember to keep something in my belly. I have also found that when I drink water it makes my stomach sour as well. I have stuck to apple juice and Sprite. That seems to help a little too.

As for work, I am working from home. I did so for about 4 hours yesterday. It felt good to get things done. I got lots of work completed that I needed to get completed and I was able to watch over my agents from home. I made sure they were doing their job correctly. Thank heavens for VPN.

Day 53

It's the Tuesday after... feeling better. Still not 100%, but I am at least functioning. I like that I can function. I worked from home today... so I feel like I am still part of society. I like working from home... not that I would do it every day, but at least when I show up to work tomorrow I know that I won't be days behind with work. That makes it all worthwhile.

Right now I am feeling a little ill. I think it's because I feel so water logged with drinking so much and also that I had macaroni and cheese. Being lactose intolerant, that wasn't too good... but it was the only thing that sounded decent. This afternoon I was hungry for chicken lo mein, so I ordered the lo mein lunch. For $5.75 I got a nice portion of lo mein, pork fried rice, two fried won tons and a egg roll. It was good. I didn't get the soup because I had take out. If I had eaten in, then I would have had soup with it too. I couldn't believe all the food that came with it. The take out box wouldn't close. I will definitely be going there for lunch again. It took me nearly an hour and a half to eat lunch. Part of it was because it was so much and then the other part was because I hadn't eaten anything in the past three days so I didn't want to over do it so quickly. I did eat most of the lunch. I didn't eat a lot of the rice. I ate all the chicken in the lo mein. It was tasty. :)

Tomorrow I go back to work. Added to the new work week also means the start to my new shift. I open up the building at 4a... so I am going to keep this posting short. Added to the fact I have a new team. So we'll be doing some team building over the next few weeks. My team does know about my cancer, so they weren't shocked when they didn't see me on Monday. Thank goodness I have about half of my old team, so it won't be such a shock.

OMG, tangent... watching House Hunters International and the guy wanted to know what a bidet was for.... um... LOL. He asked if you bathe a baby in it! hahaha!

Well, that's about it. Not much to report. I think I'll take a half of ativan tonight and sleep well.

Day 44

Posting about Saturday's activities today... why? Because I was soooo busy. I take my good days very seriously... jam packing them full with fun stuff.

Saturday.... I couldn't sleep, well, actually I slept in 2 hours longer than I would have on a normal working day. But I got out of bed and did some work from home. Got a lot of stuff done between 5.30 and 7.30 when the kids woke up. Got the kids breakfast and ready for the day. Brad spent most of the day helping friends, Tracey and Eugene, move into their new home... which is really cute. At around 11.30a, Grandma Nancy came over to help with lunch and I ran over to Tracey and Eugene's to deliver a house warming gift. When I got back, Elaina was already down for a nap and I "tried" to get Amelia to take a nap. No such luck... but she had quiet time in her room. I, on the other hand, got to eat a yummy burrito in peace and quiet!

Then Elaina got up, Brad got home and Grandma and Grandpa came over (Bill and Evelyn). We went out to dinner.... yummy fish and chips. Then we went to do a little shopping. We came home and it was time to get the kids ready for bed... and by then I was soooo tired. I fell asleep on the couch and then moved up to the bedroom to sleep.

Saturday was a good day. I wasn't fatigued and wasn't nauseated... not once. I like these days and loathe the fact that in another 4 more days I have to go back in for another round. I don't mind going in on Thursdays, I just don't like the days 3-6. Those are the hardest. I will have to find out if I can take compazine, zofran and atavan at the same time. Maybe that will be my drug cocktail of choice to keep the nausea and vomiting at bay. I know the zofran kept the nausea down... but it didn't keep the vomiting from stopping. At least I know that on Sunday next Bill and Evelyn will be here so I can just hole up in the bedroom and not worry about the kids... only surface when I need some food or more water. Drink, drink, drink.

Day 39 - More nausea

So as you can tell, some of these posts are coming AFTER the actual day. Reason being, just to sick to write. I am sure you can fill in the blanks, though.

Day 39, Monday, was a rough day. Following day 38 where I didn't eat hardly anything at all, I managed to eat two little White Castle cheese burgers, some dried apple slices and just a few noodles. I dealt with nausea all day long. I took compazine, ativan... anything and everything that was in the arsenal. I didn't take zofran. That was the only thing I didn't take. For some reason I think it kills my taste buds... like I was tasting anything yummy anyway. But I did also manage to drink some apple juice and some ginger ale. That was more than what I drank the day prior. Heck on Day 38, I threw up boullion. I couldn't even get that to stay down. The weird thing about Sunday was that I wasn't feeling nauseous. I just had to throw up. Interesting, eh?

So yesterday, my best friend, Jen, came over and kept me company for a few hours. She said she'd be my Merry Maid, but I couldn't have her cleaning my house... sorry, Jen, not that mean. :) So she kept me company with conversation, watched me nap, we watched Rachael Ray's 1000's episode and just talked. It was nice to have someone there. Every once in awhile she'd grab me more drink... because I had to keep up on my fluids. I don't want to get dehydrated.

Becky ended up keeping the girls until Brad picked them up after work. So it was another long day for them. But I think they are used to it. Thank you Becky for keeping them all day. It means so much to us that we don't have to worry about them. :)

Then I took a full dose of ativan and went to bed. I woke up this morning... and am feeling better.... which leads me to Day 40.

Day 37 - Nausea and acid reflux

What a day! It started off kind of good, then went bad and then good and then bad.

Today was my first day of taking zofran. It was good for awhile, but then I took the dexomethasone. That made me feel awful. And I had to go to a birthday party. I managed to get myself ready and had Brad drive us and the girls to the party. We got there and I started feeling a little better. I was actually climbing all around the gym structures. Another off moment was the fact that I had some acid reflux going. It felt like I had something wanting to come up and out. It wasn't nausea. It was a burning sensation. So I called the on call oncologist to see if I could take Zantac for it. She approved it. Yea! The zantac helped. I had nearly a pound of mashed potatoes and gravy. I was craving something bland. All day I was having ups and downs. My final down... as I was getting ready for bed, I threw up. I felt better afterwards, but I still threw up. It wasn't much... just a little something from dinner. I took an ativan and went to bed.

We will see what day 38 brings.