Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow I travel down to the ginormous hospital in Salt Lake City for my reconstruction. Over the last few months I thought and thought about the pros and cons of having Dr. Massey perform my reconstruction. I thought about how fun it would be to travel to the eastern states. But then I thought about the headache that would come with getting the insurance to work with her, worrying about travel plans and where to stay, and whether we would have to pay for WonderfulHubby's airline ticket out of pocket. I worried about who would be able to take care of my kids for so long, and I worried about how my kiddos would handle me being gone for so long (I would have to spend two weeks there to recover before flying home). And I talked to the ladies in my support group, and there are two doctors in Salt Lake who perform the surgery, and both are covered by my insurance!
So I met with the woman doctor, Dr. June Chen back in November, and really liked her, and got the date all set. That was about the time I had my last herceptin (easy chemo) treatment, and my first "regularly scheduled" mammogram. Mammogram came back clear as can be, so no worries there. Anyways, like I said in a previous post, I decided I definitely wanted to go with the reconstruction where they use your tummy fat to rebuild it (called a DIEP). There are other options, but this seemed like the best for me, especially because my tummy is my "trouble area" as far as weight goes.
Now the last week or so, I have been a bundle of nerves. I think I was less nervous when I was going in for my mastectomy, but who's to know for sure. My memory is definitely not that clear... I think what I am worried the most about is the recovery. I have been told that the tummy tuck part of the surgery takes longer to heal than the chest. So, WonderfulHubby is taking two or three weeks off work, and then my mom is coming to stay for a week, and perhaps as that is coming to an end we will see if I need any more help. Today we have kept busy doing laundry, and making sure all the shopping and errands are done. Hopefully WonderfulHubby will get a good night's rest, because we will have to wake up around 4:15 to make sure we get to the hospital for the sign-in time they gave us, 5:30! Me, well, though I prefer getting a good night's sleep, it doesn't matter as much, because I'll be sleeping most of the day because the procedure is so long.
Oh! And Dr. Chen will be removing my porta-cath as well! Woohoo! So that's one less surgery to worry about.
Also, I went in 2 weeks ago to Dr. Okawa to get my tissue expander inflated so that my scar would be smaller. We overfilled, though didn't realize until a few hours later and she had already left the office. It hurt so bad! And the percocet barely took the edge off, and made me feel sick and dizzy! Do I had a miserable couple of days before I could go back in and have her take out the excess. Dr. Okawa was sick the next day, or she would have done it then.
So that is all for now. Keep me and my family in your prayers. I'm going to have a 3 day stay afterwards, and that will be hard on my little kiddos. Thank you!!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Sunday, June 13, 2010
New Boobie Doctor
I met with Dr. Marga Massey down in Salt Lake earlier this month (June), about a week after radiation was done. She is this very wonderful doctor who spends her whole time doing breast cancer reconstructions. She has three hospitals she operates out of, and has five offices around the US she regularly visits so that women from all over the US can have an easier time getting in to meet with her and get a consult. She is really neat, and specializes in doing reconstructions with the patient's own fatty tissue. I've done a LOT of research and asking around, and have decided that this is what I want. So I had a very nice meeting with her. She said she was kind of at a loss on what to do with me because I was so informed on the different options. But I am one of the lucky ones who had chemo first, and not surgery first, so I had plenty of time to decide, and wasn't walking into this meeting a nervous wreck.
I'll post again when I get closer to the surgery date. So I think I may be done posting (or feeling guilty about not posting, heh heh), for a while. Love you all. Thank you for all your prayers and support!
I'll post again when I get closer to the surgery date. So I think I may be done posting (or feeling guilty about not posting, heh heh), for a while. Love you all. Thank you for all your prayers and support!
Test Results
So I went in for my Herceptin treatment on the last day of radiation. I asked Dr.Hansen how we would know it was all effective. He had forgotten to have me go in and get an x-ray and blood work done after the final "real" chemo treatment, so he wrote me a prescription (order?) to get that done. I went in a couple days later and quickly got that taken care of.
Dr. Hansen's office called about a week later with the results. The office lady left me a message on my cell phone.
Wanna hear the results?
Are you sure?
Okay...
No More Cancer!!!! I am officially in remission!!!
Woohoo!!!
That's one message I don't want to erase, ever. :)
So, as it stands, I keep doing the Herceptin treatments every three weeks until October (so that I've had it for one full year). Then come November or December I can get the first reconstruction sugery done (there are usually three reconstruction surgeries). I'll have mammograms on the remaining "real" breast every year, probably for the rest of my life. And life will move on...
Dr. Hansen's office called about a week later with the results. The office lady left me a message on my cell phone.
Wanna hear the results?
Are you sure?
Okay...
No More Cancer!!!! I am officially in remission!!!
Woohoo!!!
That's one message I don't want to erase, ever. :)
So, as it stands, I keep doing the Herceptin treatments every three weeks until October (so that I've had it for one full year). Then come November or December I can get the first reconstruction sugery done (there are usually three reconstruction surgeries). I'll have mammograms on the remaining "real" breast every year, probably for the rest of my life. And life will move on...
Time to catch up!
First things first, I have hair again! It is long enough to shampoo, and to feel the wind blowing through it! I can't tell you how happy I was on the day those things happened! It is not long enough to comb yet, but no worries, it has gotten pretty thick since it first came in. It does throw me off a little though when cleaning up...
How? Well, if I find ponytail holders, my habit is to put them in my on hair until I get to the bathroom to put them away (You can imagine just how wacky my hair looked when I was a teenager picking up 5 or 6 big scrunchies). So I pick up a ponytail holder, subconciously know I have hair again, and reach to put it in my hair. I usually stop about halfway through the motion with a look of chagrin. My hair may be one-half to one full inch long, but that is definitely not long enough for a ponytail holder. :)
Nextly, radiation has started, and finished. I was happy when I met with my Radiology Oncologist and she said I would only have 5 weeks of radiation. Whew! Super glad we got rid of that extra week.
Now, what with me being sick, I didn't go back into the surgeon to get the tissue expander expanded anymore. I was satisfied with it, and didn't want any additional pain I could avoid. So I went in to the visit with Dr. Ingersol's office. She is the radiation oncologist. I met with her, and she noticed I had a skin infection starting around the scar on my left lump(which I had kind of noticed but not thought was anything like an infection until maybe the day I went in to see her). Oh, and it hardly seems like a breast anymore. Seeing as how there's a sack of water making it big, there is no nipple, and really, no skin sensation there anymore. I can feel pressure, but that's about it. Anyways, so Dr. Ingersol marked up the lump to make a border around the infection to see if the antibiotics she was prescribing were working. Then she left me with Aaron, one of the radiologists. Now, there are three radiologists in this office, plus the nurse who works with Dr. Ingersol. The nurse's name is Karen. Then we have the radiologists: Aaron, Darren, and Karen. Crazy, huh?!
Anyways Aaron took me to the simulation room, and explained the process, showed me around, and then got to business (all the while keeping up a steady stream of jokes). This room is just like the radiation room, just the machine only takes x-rays, and doesn't shoot cancer-killing radiation. So, you walk into the room, and there is a table laying in front of a large machine that has a short, fat arm sticking out above the table. They put a special board on the table that has a slight incline. It has a resting place for my head, and stirrups for my arms to go into so they meet above my head, with a vertical bar to hold onto. So I lay on the table, and put my arms up, and because there are lymph nodes in the neck/shoulder area, I have to lay looking slightly to the right so they zap just that area, and not my ear too. So he shot a bunch of x-rays, and made marks. When he was all done, he got out a bottle of ink and a needle, and made me 5 "dot" tattoos. I am going to pretend they are interesting, like microscopic sailing ships. Or maybe, I will get another dot close to the first ones, and add a bit smile for smiley faces. The tattoos are to use to line up with the laser-lights that shine out of the ceiling and walls of the radiation rooms.
Then he took me to get a quick scan done somewhere else in the building, and I was done for the day. I came back a week later to start radiation.
Now, I had 6 areas they started out zapping. Neck/shoulder area from the front, then the back. Then the affected breast from upper/right twice, and the same general area from my left, more shooting straight at my side. Now this arm that is shooting radiation at me has a glass plate with a "+" centered on it. Behind the glass, there are pins that are the approximate size of the fat teeth of a comb, but not tapered. These pins rest right against each other, and there are two sets that meet in the middle. They can move the pins independently and use them to form the different specific shapes that they need to radiate, so I don’t have any overlap in the radiation fields that are right next to each other, and so they don’t zap what they don’t need to. When they would zap my breast from the upper right I could watch the pins move during the zapping, so at least those two zaps got more or a sweeping pattern than a blanket open zap.
Each zap took about 20 seconds. I would come in with my hospital robe and jeans on. The radiologist (whoever it was that day, they all took turns), would hold up a pillowcase (or a piece of fabric about that big) in front of my chest. I would take off my robe, and hold onto the pillowcase while I got onto the table. Once I was on the table with my arms and hands in place, they would fold the pillowcase so it covered the un-affected breast. So I’m all ready, and they move the table with a control to get it pretty close to where I needed to be, and then would nudge the frame I was laying on to get me all lined up with the laser-lights coming out of the walls. They would get me all lined up, and the radiation machine “face” all lined up. They would then turn on a light and mark with a marker the lower end of the neck/shoulder field. I think I was only drawn on more often in high school when I would write all my homework assignments on my hand!
So, they would zap the neck/shoulder top, come in and raise the table and move the radiation machine face around to beneath the table to zap from below. Then come back in and move the table and radiation machine face for the breast zaps. Zap, zap from above right, come in to move the machine face again, and zap, zap the left side. It only took ten minutes, tops. It did take longer on the days my allergies where acting up and I had to cough in the middle of the zapping. I had to fight the reflex to cover my mouth when I coughed. When I did move to cough, they had to come in and re-align me. But they were all very nice about coming in to readjust me when I moved.
So that’s about it for the radiation room. They had a waiting room back in their hallway of the hospital. The waiting room had a restroom and two changing rooms right off of it. They had a tv, and a big puzzle set up, in case you ever had to wait very long. It was one of those harder puzzles. The first day I looked at it, I could find any pieces to match up, and I was so frustrated I wanted to box it all up and start with a different one. After that I readjusted my expectations to be happy if I even placed one if I ever had to wait very long. That made it very much less frustrating.
I met with Dr. Ingersoll once a week. She would check on my progress, and how my skin was reacting. It developed into a pretty bad “sunburn” on the areas that really never saw the sun. I am ever so thankful that has healed up now to just funny looking tan lines. The last week of radiation I started to realize how hard it was getting on my body. I didn’t do much during the day just keep an eye on the kids and play on the computer, so I didn’t notice. Then I took my girls for a walk around our little block. I hadn’t even made it the corner only three houses away, when I felt my legs and arms just telling me how exhausted they were. After that I decided to stop feeling guilty about my computer time until I was done with radiation, and really my body told me it was okay to do more.
And that’s radiation.
How? Well, if I find ponytail holders, my habit is to put them in my on hair until I get to the bathroom to put them away (You can imagine just how wacky my hair looked when I was a teenager picking up 5 or 6 big scrunchies). So I pick up a ponytail holder, subconciously know I have hair again, and reach to put it in my hair. I usually stop about halfway through the motion with a look of chagrin. My hair may be one-half to one full inch long, but that is definitely not long enough for a ponytail holder. :)
Nextly, radiation has started, and finished. I was happy when I met with my Radiology Oncologist and she said I would only have 5 weeks of radiation. Whew! Super glad we got rid of that extra week.
Now, what with me being sick, I didn't go back into the surgeon to get the tissue expander expanded anymore. I was satisfied with it, and didn't want any additional pain I could avoid. So I went in to the visit with Dr. Ingersol's office. She is the radiation oncologist. I met with her, and she noticed I had a skin infection starting around the scar on my left lump(which I had kind of noticed but not thought was anything like an infection until maybe the day I went in to see her). Oh, and it hardly seems like a breast anymore. Seeing as how there's a sack of water making it big, there is no nipple, and really, no skin sensation there anymore. I can feel pressure, but that's about it. Anyways, so Dr. Ingersol marked up the lump to make a border around the infection to see if the antibiotics she was prescribing were working. Then she left me with Aaron, one of the radiologists. Now, there are three radiologists in this office, plus the nurse who works with Dr. Ingersol. The nurse's name is Karen. Then we have the radiologists: Aaron, Darren, and Karen. Crazy, huh?!
Anyways Aaron took me to the simulation room, and explained the process, showed me around, and then got to business (all the while keeping up a steady stream of jokes). This room is just like the radiation room, just the machine only takes x-rays, and doesn't shoot cancer-killing radiation. So, you walk into the room, and there is a table laying in front of a large machine that has a short, fat arm sticking out above the table. They put a special board on the table that has a slight incline. It has a resting place for my head, and stirrups for my arms to go into so they meet above my head, with a vertical bar to hold onto. So I lay on the table, and put my arms up, and because there are lymph nodes in the neck/shoulder area, I have to lay looking slightly to the right so they zap just that area, and not my ear too. So he shot a bunch of x-rays, and made marks. When he was all done, he got out a bottle of ink and a needle, and made me 5 "dot" tattoos. I am going to pretend they are interesting, like microscopic sailing ships. Or maybe, I will get another dot close to the first ones, and add a bit smile for smiley faces. The tattoos are to use to line up with the laser-lights that shine out of the ceiling and walls of the radiation rooms.
Then he took me to get a quick scan done somewhere else in the building, and I was done for the day. I came back a week later to start radiation.
Now, I had 6 areas they started out zapping. Neck/shoulder area from the front, then the back. Then the affected breast from upper/right twice, and the same general area from my left, more shooting straight at my side. Now this arm that is shooting radiation at me has a glass plate with a "+" centered on it. Behind the glass, there are pins that are the approximate size of the fat teeth of a comb, but not tapered. These pins rest right against each other, and there are two sets that meet in the middle. They can move the pins independently and use them to form the different specific shapes that they need to radiate, so I don’t have any overlap in the radiation fields that are right next to each other, and so they don’t zap what they don’t need to. When they would zap my breast from the upper right I could watch the pins move during the zapping, so at least those two zaps got more or a sweeping pattern than a blanket open zap.
Each zap took about 20 seconds. I would come in with my hospital robe and jeans on. The radiologist (whoever it was that day, they all took turns), would hold up a pillowcase (or a piece of fabric about that big) in front of my chest. I would take off my robe, and hold onto the pillowcase while I got onto the table. Once I was on the table with my arms and hands in place, they would fold the pillowcase so it covered the un-affected breast. So I’m all ready, and they move the table with a control to get it pretty close to where I needed to be, and then would nudge the frame I was laying on to get me all lined up with the laser-lights coming out of the walls. They would get me all lined up, and the radiation machine “face” all lined up. They would then turn on a light and mark with a marker the lower end of the neck/shoulder field. I think I was only drawn on more often in high school when I would write all my homework assignments on my hand!
So, they would zap the neck/shoulder top, come in and raise the table and move the radiation machine face around to beneath the table to zap from below. Then come back in and move the table and radiation machine face for the breast zaps. Zap, zap from above right, come in to move the machine face again, and zap, zap the left side. It only took ten minutes, tops. It did take longer on the days my allergies where acting up and I had to cough in the middle of the zapping. I had to fight the reflex to cover my mouth when I coughed. When I did move to cough, they had to come in and re-align me. But they were all very nice about coming in to readjust me when I moved.
So that’s about it for the radiation room. They had a waiting room back in their hallway of the hospital. The waiting room had a restroom and two changing rooms right off of it. They had a tv, and a big puzzle set up, in case you ever had to wait very long. It was one of those harder puzzles. The first day I looked at it, I could find any pieces to match up, and I was so frustrated I wanted to box it all up and start with a different one. After that I readjusted my expectations to be happy if I even placed one if I ever had to wait very long. That made it very much less frustrating.
I met with Dr. Ingersoll once a week. She would check on my progress, and how my skin was reacting. It developed into a pretty bad “sunburn” on the areas that really never saw the sun. I am ever so thankful that has healed up now to just funny looking tan lines. The last week of radiation I started to realize how hard it was getting on my body. I didn’t do much during the day just keep an eye on the kids and play on the computer, so I didn’t notice. Then I took my girls for a walk around our little block. I hadn’t even made it the corner only three houses away, when I felt my legs and arms just telling me how exhausted they were. After that I decided to stop feeling guilty about my computer time until I was done with radiation, and really my body told me it was okay to do more.
And that’s radiation.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Visit from Wonderful Mother-in-law
So, WonderfulHubby went back to work, and his mom came to stay. I had one day in between when I had the kids to myself. But the older kids had short day at school that day, so I wasn't left to wrestle the younglings all by myself.
So WonderfulMIL arrived Saturday afternoon. She and I stayed home from church on Sunday (and watched Twilight, hehehehehe). Monday and Tuesday, after the big kids went to school and we started to go through what she had brought to watch, read and crochet, I was starting to feel a little guilty about having her miss work to just come play with me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed having her visit, and all the brother-in-laws and their families coming by to say hello, too. But I didn't feel like I really needed her there and was "waisting" her vacation time. Then Tuesday night I woke up sick. Like hours sitting on the toilet waiting for the flood to end so I can go back to bed and get some sleep. And not just diarrhea, but nausea too. For me, it's usually just diarrhea, and I can eat whatever, so that was different (not that I usually get up in the middle of the night to eat, but actually wanting to drink some water would have been nice). Then the throwing up started. This crap was more intensive than most of my chemo-related sickness! WonderfulMIL got the older kids off to school and WonderfulHubby got himself off to work. At that point I was just trying to crawl back into bed so I could sleep it off. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, I called my family practice doctor and left a message to see what I should do. I waited a bit longer, then called the main clinic line and made an appointment with whoever in the clinic had an opening, which was luckily not too far off. WonderfulMIL loaded the little kids in the van, and we took them to our neighbor. Then she drove me to the hospital (the clinic is in the basement). There wasn't any close parking, so she dropped me off at a door, parked, and then came and met up with me. Luckily there was a bench there I could sit on. I had my bucket with me, just in case. We walked together as far as the next main entrance, where we stopped so I could get a wheelchair. I would have not made it without it, believe you me!
When we got to the clinic and were checking in, my doctor's nurse saw me and said she had just tried to call my house, and that my regular doctor, Dr. Gochnour, would squeeze me into his schedule if I just wanted to wait about 15 minutes longer than what my appointment was for the other doctor. I happily took that suggestion, and sat in a room with WonderfulMIL with the lights dimmed, occasionally dry heaving, and crying (I cry when I am tired).
side note: Now, I don't know if I have before sung the praises of this clinic. We started going there from a recommendation from a friend before I got pregnant with Oldest Boy. We have seen nurses come and go, and staff change duties, and the location change. I have never been to a place where I felt better taken care of. Dr. Gochnour has delivered all of my babies. If I had ever REALLY needed to get a hold of him, I knew which office worker I could call who would place me on hold for 10 minutes until he walked by so she could snag him to answer my concern (and in my defense I only did this 3 times in the last 10 years). They all quickly heard I had cancer after I kinda announced it when I went in to get the flu shot in the fall (I was asking whether that made me considered to have a compromised immune system, even though I hadn't started chemo yet). So whenever I came in, whether for me or the kids, they all asked how I was doing, and just made me feel, well, looked after. So if anyone in the Ogden area is looking for a doctors office, drop me a line, and I will give you their number. Now, not to say they are perfect, there are still times we have to wait, and Dr. Gochnour is usually booked out a couple of weeks, but really that's to be expected, and it's not anything worth complaining about.
end side note
One of the nurses, upon hearing me dry heave, came in and offered to get me a drink of water so at least I would have something to throw up. She brought it to me, and I don't think I threw up after that, and it was nice to have something to sip (see! nice people!). Dr. Gochnour came in, and we talked about what was going on, and he said he recommended me getting admitted to stay overnight in the hospital. It was that, or just go get a transfusion of IV fluids. So I got wheeled upstairs and admitted. We called WonderfulHubby to let him know what was going on, and he left work early. We called my mom, and she came and got the kids from the neighbor to spend the night at her house, stopping at my house to pack them overnight clothes and wait for the big kids to get home from school.
In my room, they came to draw blood to run tests on. The intern that was on call for my clinic had left instructions to do blood draws and start and IV through my veins, and not my porta-cath. He was concerned especially about doing the blood draws through it, not wanting to break it. After having the lymph nodes removed in my left arm, they can no longer do any poking or pricking on that side, so my right arm was the lucky pincushion. I was dehydrated, and they got a couple of good starts, to get the blood they needed for the tests, but then the vein would collapse when they tried to get the IV started. So I asked the nurses to ask the intern (resident?, I forget what they call them, he's almost a doctor), if we could do the IV through the porta-cath. He agreed, and gave them orders (because it has to be official, not because he was being bossy) to do it that way. I got some anti-nausea meds, and a shot in my tummy to keep my blood from clotting. (Apparently I got to skip that shot when I was in for my mastectomy because my blood was still thin from chemo.) I don't think I threw up anymore after that, though I did still have diarrhea for a couple of days. To illustrate how dehydrated I had become so quickly, they emptied a whole bag of IV fluids into me before I had to pee again. Very dehydrated.
Well, that is pretty much the whole story. WonderfulHubby brought lunch for him and his mom, which they kindly ate in the hallway because it smelled so horrible to me at that point. They went home late that night, I slept very little that night because I just knew as soon as I fell asleep the nurse or CNA would be in to check something and wake me up. I was feeling pretty much better by the next morning, and got released a bit before noon. My sweet mom kept the kids overnight the next night too. And maybe the next one too, I forget. Anyways, I got better, and had a lot of help, and was very thankful my WonderfulMIL was there that week.
So WonderfulMIL arrived Saturday afternoon. She and I stayed home from church on Sunday (and watched Twilight, hehehehehe). Monday and Tuesday, after the big kids went to school and we started to go through what she had brought to watch, read and crochet, I was starting to feel a little guilty about having her miss work to just come play with me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed having her visit, and all the brother-in-laws and their families coming by to say hello, too. But I didn't feel like I really needed her there and was "waisting" her vacation time. Then Tuesday night I woke up sick. Like hours sitting on the toilet waiting for the flood to end so I can go back to bed and get some sleep. And not just diarrhea, but nausea too. For me, it's usually just diarrhea, and I can eat whatever, so that was different (not that I usually get up in the middle of the night to eat, but actually wanting to drink some water would have been nice). Then the throwing up started. This crap was more intensive than most of my chemo-related sickness! WonderfulMIL got the older kids off to school and WonderfulHubby got himself off to work. At that point I was just trying to crawl back into bed so I could sleep it off. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, I called my family practice doctor and left a message to see what I should do. I waited a bit longer, then called the main clinic line and made an appointment with whoever in the clinic had an opening, which was luckily not too far off. WonderfulMIL loaded the little kids in the van, and we took them to our neighbor. Then she drove me to the hospital (the clinic is in the basement). There wasn't any close parking, so she dropped me off at a door, parked, and then came and met up with me. Luckily there was a bench there I could sit on. I had my bucket with me, just in case. We walked together as far as the next main entrance, where we stopped so I could get a wheelchair. I would have not made it without it, believe you me!
When we got to the clinic and were checking in, my doctor's nurse saw me and said she had just tried to call my house, and that my regular doctor, Dr. Gochnour, would squeeze me into his schedule if I just wanted to wait about 15 minutes longer than what my appointment was for the other doctor. I happily took that suggestion, and sat in a room with WonderfulMIL with the lights dimmed, occasionally dry heaving, and crying (I cry when I am tired).
side note: Now, I don't know if I have before sung the praises of this clinic. We started going there from a recommendation from a friend before I got pregnant with Oldest Boy. We have seen nurses come and go, and staff change duties, and the location change. I have never been to a place where I felt better taken care of. Dr. Gochnour has delivered all of my babies. If I had ever REALLY needed to get a hold of him, I knew which office worker I could call who would place me on hold for 10 minutes until he walked by so she could snag him to answer my concern (and in my defense I only did this 3 times in the last 10 years). They all quickly heard I had cancer after I kinda announced it when I went in to get the flu shot in the fall (I was asking whether that made me considered to have a compromised immune system, even though I hadn't started chemo yet). So whenever I came in, whether for me or the kids, they all asked how I was doing, and just made me feel, well, looked after. So if anyone in the Ogden area is looking for a doctors office, drop me a line, and I will give you their number. Now, not to say they are perfect, there are still times we have to wait, and Dr. Gochnour is usually booked out a couple of weeks, but really that's to be expected, and it's not anything worth complaining about.
end side note
One of the nurses, upon hearing me dry heave, came in and offered to get me a drink of water so at least I would have something to throw up. She brought it to me, and I don't think I threw up after that, and it was nice to have something to sip (see! nice people!). Dr. Gochnour came in, and we talked about what was going on, and he said he recommended me getting admitted to stay overnight in the hospital. It was that, or just go get a transfusion of IV fluids. So I got wheeled upstairs and admitted. We called WonderfulHubby to let him know what was going on, and he left work early. We called my mom, and she came and got the kids from the neighbor to spend the night at her house, stopping at my house to pack them overnight clothes and wait for the big kids to get home from school.
In my room, they came to draw blood to run tests on. The intern that was on call for my clinic had left instructions to do blood draws and start and IV through my veins, and not my porta-cath. He was concerned especially about doing the blood draws through it, not wanting to break it. After having the lymph nodes removed in my left arm, they can no longer do any poking or pricking on that side, so my right arm was the lucky pincushion. I was dehydrated, and they got a couple of good starts, to get the blood they needed for the tests, but then the vein would collapse when they tried to get the IV started. So I asked the nurses to ask the intern (resident?, I forget what they call them, he's almost a doctor), if we could do the IV through the porta-cath. He agreed, and gave them orders (because it has to be official, not because he was being bossy) to do it that way. I got some anti-nausea meds, and a shot in my tummy to keep my blood from clotting. (Apparently I got to skip that shot when I was in for my mastectomy because my blood was still thin from chemo.) I don't think I threw up anymore after that, though I did still have diarrhea for a couple of days. To illustrate how dehydrated I had become so quickly, they emptied a whole bag of IV fluids into me before I had to pee again. Very dehydrated.
Well, that is pretty much the whole story. WonderfulHubby brought lunch for him and his mom, which they kindly ate in the hallway because it smelled so horrible to me at that point. They went home late that night, I slept very little that night because I just knew as soon as I fell asleep the nurse or CNA would be in to check something and wake me up. I was feeling pretty much better by the next morning, and got released a bit before noon. My sweet mom kept the kids overnight the next night too. And maybe the next one too, I forget. Anyways, I got better, and had a lot of help, and was very thankful my WonderfulMIL was there that week.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Less Borg-Like, more Gumby-ish
Well, as I said before, the surgery went well. Recovery was moving along without too much pain, thanks to the Lortab. Then the second week, about Tuesday (March 15) or Wednesday, the Lortab stopped working. Very painful. But then On a whim the next Monday (March 22) I decided to take 3 Ibuprofen, and it worked!!! So I used those for a few days until the pain dropped off again this weekend, and I only get random stabbings of pain, which I figure Ibuprofen wouldn't help much for anyways, and I just take them at night.
So on the 22nd I went in for a check-up with the plastic surgeon, hoping she would remove the drain. But it was still putting out too much fluid. She said to come back Friday and one of the nurses on her staff could remove it as long as it was only putting out below 30 ml a day. It got down that low, and so they took it out!!!! I was forewarned, and took a good dose of over-the-counter pain pills so I could drive myself (because WonderfulHubby had to go to work that day), and the pain wasn't as bad as I expected. That afternoon I also went to Physical Therapy. I was warned that physical therapy might hurt a lot too as they stretched me, but I am a limber person. The Physical Therapist said her husband was limber like me and she called said he was like a gumby person. It was funny as she measured the movement of my good arm so she could see how far the affected arm would need to move. The good arm could relax into positions upto 30 degrees past "normal." Wahahaha, I like being a little abnormal. lol So my affected arm is really close to normal range, but not quite there. So she gave me a list of stretches to do and a pulley thing to hook on a door so I can slowly get me affected arm up to where it needs to be. Other than that, the physical therapist extended my "don't pick up the kids" rule for another 3 weeks. Grrr. I mean, I can pick them up with my good arm, so that'll get it done most of the time, but I can't carry Little Girl into bed when she falls asleep.
So Friday was a good, productive day. WonderfufHubby has Monday off, and then he's back to work. But his mom has come down to visit and help this coming week. I am excited, we get along very well. And she is the sewing queen! So I am hoping she can help me with a couple of projects I haven't gotten too.
Well, that's all for now. :)
So on the 22nd I went in for a check-up with the plastic surgeon, hoping she would remove the drain. But it was still putting out too much fluid. She said to come back Friday and one of the nurses on her staff could remove it as long as it was only putting out below 30 ml a day. It got down that low, and so they took it out!!!! I was forewarned, and took a good dose of over-the-counter pain pills so I could drive myself (because WonderfulHubby had to go to work that day), and the pain wasn't as bad as I expected. That afternoon I also went to Physical Therapy. I was warned that physical therapy might hurt a lot too as they stretched me, but I am a limber person. The Physical Therapist said her husband was limber like me and she called said he was like a gumby person. It was funny as she measured the movement of my good arm so she could see how far the affected arm would need to move. The good arm could relax into positions upto 30 degrees past "normal." Wahahaha, I like being a little abnormal. lol So my affected arm is really close to normal range, but not quite there. So she gave me a list of stretches to do and a pulley thing to hook on a door so I can slowly get me affected arm up to where it needs to be. Other than that, the physical therapist extended my "don't pick up the kids" rule for another 3 weeks. Grrr. I mean, I can pick them up with my good arm, so that'll get it done most of the time, but I can't carry Little Girl into bed when she falls asleep.
So Friday was a good, productive day. WonderfufHubby has Monday off, and then he's back to work. But his mom has come down to visit and help this coming week. I am excited, we get along very well. And she is the sewing queen! So I am hoping she can help me with a couple of projects I haven't gotten too.
Well, that's all for now. :)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Lumpy-ness
Well, I am back home and enjoying having my little sister around playing with my older kids and keeping me entertained. My wonderful mom took the two little kids to stay at her house overnight a couple of nights, so that they would not overly love me for a couple of days. I have found that percocet makes me itchy, so Lortab it is. I have a drain, so I am slightly more Borg-like. And my arm is stiff and feels a little funny. But the doctors and the paperwork they gave me said to start using my arm for light-duty stuff right away. The paperwork mentioned doing my hair. I laughed about that. Then I brushed out my sister's hair.
I have to wait until the drains come out to really shower. grrrr. but that's okay, because I am still swollen, so I am not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. It's a good thing I have books and movies and tv shows and stuff like that. I am still really tired, but I can take a nap whenever I want to, as long as I can get comfy. Thank goodness for all of these wonderful people in my life!
I have to wait until the drains come out to really shower. grrrr. but that's okay, because I am still swollen, so I am not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. It's a good thing I have books and movies and tv shows and stuff like that. I am still really tired, but I can take a nap whenever I want to, as long as I can get comfy. Thank goodness for all of these wonderful people in my life!
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