Two weeks after my last chemotherapy injection the day had come to surgically attack this cancer and hopefully get it all out. I had a double mastectomy with tissue expansion on both sides. My left breast had the tumor but I decided to have both removed considering the high chance of recurrence. I’m glad I did. My pathology results after surgery showed microscopic cancer cells in my right breast. My axillary (arm pit) lymph nodes on the left side were removed and tissue expanders placed where each breast was. A tissue expander is an inflatable breast implant designed to stretch the skin and muscle to make room for a permanent implant in the future. Each expander was placed beneath the skin and chest muscle.
My husband and I arrived at the hospital and checked into pre-op. Stepping right into my special little five day nightmare. My surgeons did a great job of telling me what was going to happen. But I didn’t quite grasp how debilitating and painful the recovery would be.
Surgery was devastating in many ways. If there was a time during my journey where I wanted to quit and give up it was during my hospital stay. I could not comprehend ever healing. I hated cancer with my whole being, felt so defeated, tired, ugly, sick, and frustrated. I despised anything pink and so help me if another person walks in to my room with another hand-made pillow or blanket I’m going to go ape shit. I was done. Was this worth surviving even? What is the point? I’ll never be the same.
The operating room was busy, noisy, bright, and cold. The anesthesiologist tried to comfort me as I moved to the operating bed. I asked him to just knock me out ASAP. God bless him, he did!
Waking up gradually in post-op care I could hear people moving fast around me. I’m not clear on what happened during my surgery but apparently I was given a boat load of sedating medications which made it extremely difficult to wake up from surgery. As my eyes started to open a nurse came over and asked how I felt. Like my chest has been cut open. Like someone is standing on my chest and pulling at the same time. All I could say was “it hurts”. She smiled concerningly, left for a minute, and came back with morphine. Back to sleep. I had no desire to be awake so being extra sedated was fine with me.
Despite the grogginess I graduated from post-op care and was taken to my hospital room where I spent the next four nights. My veins were a mess after chemotherapy so keeping an IV in my arm was challenging. My IV had to be reinserted fifteen times during my stay (yes I counted). I could hear the nurses talk about how sedated I was and they were irritated with my surgeons.
Getting up from my bed brought searing pain. I had to roll over to my right side, sit up, and somehow not use my chest muscles in the process. I did not understand how I would ever recover from this surgery and in fact, really thought I wouldn’t recover.
Someone suggested to schedule a ‘special’ time when I was ready to look at my chest for the first time. Well, my ‘special’ time came on day two after throwing up all over myself and my gown. I pushed the stupid red button to get help from my nurse. Well, here comes my special time. Stupid idea to schedule a special time anyway. I ‘d like to schedule a special time to not have cancer. The nurse came in and I pointed to my gown because I was in to much pain to speak. She gave me a concerned look and gently took my gown off. Here goes… Yep. Looks like my breasts were cut off. Moving on. That is honestly what I thought and didn’t cry or whine about it. All I knew is that I had a new gown, dry sheets, and pain medicine and now I could sleep away the passing of time.
Drain tubes. Tiny tubes running through my chest area to gather all the excess fluid from surgery. The fluid was drained into these large squeeze bulbs shaped like grenades. These were connected to a tube which came out of a hole on each side of my rib cage. When the bulbs filled up with fluid my husband unhooked the bulb, poured the fluid into a measuring cup, and wrote down how many ounces of fluid we took out (to show my surgeon). These tubes were with me for two weeks and drained several times a day. It was so nice to have them out! I’m sure my husband was glad to. 🙂
My surgery results were kind of a mixed bag between relief and fear. Of all the lymph nodes taken, twelve tested positive for cancer cells. As I mentioned earlier my right breast had microscopic cancer cells. I was considered stage 3B – the ‘3’ indicates tumor size and ‘b’ means I had cancer cells in more than a few lymph nodes. My survival rate was 25%.
My recovery at home was difficult, painful, frustrating, and depressing. Being present for my kids kept me going. I managed to smile some, but honestly, it was a really hard time. After about six weeks I was able to wean off pain medications and was given a three week ‘vacation’ from cancer treatment before I had more surgery and then radiation therapy. So, I focused on my kids (I was a stay-at-home Mom), rested, slept, saw my friends, and went on a camping trip with my family.
I don’t like to sugar coat things. This post was very hard to write. I have never told anyone much of what happened during my hospital stay. I had always hoped, with the passage of time, that I would forget about my hospital stay. Ha! Wishful thinking, life doesn’t work that way! It was hard to wrote and therapeutic at the same time.
A tip sheet coming soon!
Thanks so much for reading.
Blessings,
Jules