I was surprised at how long the recovery from surgery
actually took. My only experience with surgery was my port surgery in March, so
I kind of expected I would be up and running in just a couple of days. Hah!
Silly me. I haven’t blogged for almost two months now because of the length of
time it took to recover from the surgery and the side effects of the new chemo
regimen I’m undergoing. But today is a good day, so I will try to update my
Journey of Faith for those friends who’ve been following it.
Before doing so, however, I want to share a particularly
uplifting conversation I had with Carol last night. She told me that her family
keeps me in their prayers every day, but that Zach always says a particular
prayer: that I will be blessed
with sufficient faith for this trial. I immediately felt my Heavenly Father’s
love when she shared this with me, as I have had exceeding faith throughout
this whole journey that this disease will leave my body and I will be made
whole as promised. But now I know from whence that unwavering faith has
partially come; from the heartfelt prayers of a young man who is dear to my
heart. I'm so grateful for Zach's particular prayer that I would have sufficient faith for this trial, and for all the other prayers offered in my behalf by friends and strangers alike.
May 22 – Pre-op Appointment
The pre-op appointment consisted of a very long interview
with a nurse who meticulously examined my entire medical history, including
things that had absolutely no bearing on the upcoming surgery. I guess in this
age of digital records, everything – and I mean EVERYTHING! – is compiled into
one huge medical record of your life as a cover-your-butt review to ensure the
hospital won’t be sued if something goes wrong. She even knew about my knee
injury in college (which I’d long since forgotten about) and other minutiae of
the past 50-some years. The all-encompassing scope of things that appeared on
her computer screen was actually kind of scary, especially in light of
Obamacare.
But I digress.
Following the interview were a quick EKG and x-rays of my
lungs, both of which were fine. I also had to have blood drawn, but learned
that my insurance wouldn’t cover it being done at the hospital’s pre-admittance
office. Rather, I had to travel across town to another “approved” office for
the blood draw. (While I am really grateful to have health insurance, some of
the hoops the insurance companies make you jump through seem a bit ridiculous.
Really. What difference does it make who sticks me and pulls out a couple of
vials of blood? It’s not like the blood is going to be any different in office
“A” than it was in office “B.”)
The next day, we (Mike, Nick, me and Nick’s friend Arian)
headed out to the condo in Daytona for the Memorial Day weekend. It was a nice
relaxing weekend on the beach, resting up for the surgery to come and enjoying
a few good books, swimming, and a little miniature golf with the boys.
May 28 – The Surgery
I arrived at the radiologist’s office at 8:15, rather
anxious about the procedure to insert the needle guide. The same team who did
my biopsy readied me for the procedure while I said a quick prayer and braced
myself. I had visions of pain and some long needle grotesquely sticking out of
my breast; so I was pleasantly surprised to hear, after what seemed like only a
few moments, “OK, we’re all done. You can get up now.” I hadn’t felt a thing!
They bandaged me and sent me on my way to the hospital. (And thanks to the
bandages, I couldn’t see anything either!)
The admittance nurse who brought me to my room and helped me
get ready for the surgery turned out to be Robin, a friend from many years ago
when we worked at a local law office together. We enjoyed a good chat about the
old days and old co-workers while she took my vitals and got me settled into my
room. This would be the room I would come back to after a couple of hours in
recovery, and in which I would spend the night if I elected to stay. It was a nice
private room.
Soon another nurse came in to get me ready for the
radioactive dye injection. Recalling what my surgeon had said, that the
injection burns a little and I should ask for a sedative, I did as he
suggested. That seemed to throw her off a bit and she went off to see if I
could have a sedative since my surgeon hadn’t actually prescribed one. She came
back and said that all I really needed was a local sedative, so she applied a
numbing cream around my nipple and sent me off to radiology.
I suppose when the radiologist introduced me to the tall,
handsome, strapping young man standing by my side and invited me to hold on to
his hands while she did the injections, I should have suspected that “burns a
little” was probably not an accurate description of what was about to occur.
Oh. My. Gosh.
On a scale of one to 10, a 12 is about the amount of pain I
felt with each injection. All four of them. Top, bottom, and both sides of my
nipple. Truly, that was the most pain I think I’ve ever felt in my life. The
first injection took me by such surprise that I jumped clear off the table
(while lying on my back) with such force that the needle came completely out of
my breast and radioactive dye sprayed everywhere. I quickly understood why Mr.
tall, dark and handsome was standing there holding my hands – to hold me on the
table and keep me from punching the radiologist! I gripped his hands so tightly
for the remaining injections that I’m sure they were numb and sore by the time
I let go. It was all I could do not to cry out and weep, though my eyes did
tear up with each injection.
Once the injections were completed, Ms. radiologist
disappeared and Mr. tall, dark and handsome took over to complete the scan. He
carefully followed the migration of the dye to my lymph nodes (at least this
part didn’t hurt), then snapped a picture and drew a map on my breast for the
surgeon to follow to the lymph node he was going to remove. Before long, we
were off to pre-op where I was met by none other than the Eddie Murphy
look-alike male nurse from my port surgery, “Junior.”
Junior quickly inserted an IV, put on leg cuffs to keep my
circulation going during the surgery, and forked over a little “happy juice” to
get the ball rolling. I recall the surgeon and anesthesiologist coming in and
chatting with me briefly in pre-op, and a discussion about whether I could wear
my “Save the TaTas” hat in the operating room or had to change to the
hospital’s little white gauzy hat, but the “happy juice” was already starting
to kick in and things were getting a little fuzzy. I vaguely remember watching
the ceiling tiles go by as Junior rolled me to the operating room, transferring
to the operating table and the anesthesiologist putting a mask over my face.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my little after-recovery private room
some four hours later.
The first thing I noticed was that my lower lip had a huge
bump inside and was completely numb, like after you go to the dentist. I had a
bit of a sore throat from the intubation, and figured that was why my lip was
numb too, but not much pain at the surgical sites. I was able to use the
bathroom and hold down some water (both part of the criteria for being able to
leave the hospital that night), and everything looked good to the nurse when
she checked my incisions. Mike asked if I wanted to stay or go home, but there
was really no thought required to answer that question. I wanted to go home.
The hospital processed me out and about two hours after awakening, we were on
our way home.
The Recovery
I quickly realized that the only comfortable sleeping
position after breast and lymph node surgery is sitting up in a recliner, and
that’s where I slept for the next two weeks. It wasn’t so bad the first four or
five days while I was on pain meds that pretty well knocked me out; but after I
stopped taking the pain meds, the leg cramps and butt pain really kicked in.
(You can only sit on your butt for so long before it begins to hurt!) Sleep was
elusive after that as I had to twist and turn frequently to ease the cramps
while still trying to stay upright.
One of the things mentioned in my voluminous medical record
is the fact that I am allergic to surgical tape. I noticed that first night
that I had a small red area on my breast in between the two surgical sites that
almost looked like dried blood. The next day, it appeared to be larger and
redder. By the third day, it was about one and a half inches square, bloody and
oozing, and it finally dawned on me that someone had taped something to my
breast and I was having an allergic reaction. Great. Now I had three bleeding,
oozing sites to take care of!
And what a mess they were. Again, I am a neophyte when it
comes to surgery and caring for surgical wounds. I didn’t Google anything about
it and no one mentioned the kind of aftercare the wounds would need, so it all
came as a huge surprise to me. I had assumed that I would just change the
bandages once a day or whatever, slap on a little antibiotic cream, and be back
at work by the end of the week like with my port surgery.
I quickly learned that surgical sites ooze. A lot. An awful,
awful lot. Like I would put on bandages two-deep and it would ooze through both
layers of bandages in an hour. So I started putting on two bandages and
covering both incisions (and the allergic reaction site) with a large
washcloth, and it would still ooze and bleed through to my clothing in an hour
or two. I finally had to take some sanitary pads with leak-proof plastic
coverings and put those over the bandages and washcloth to make it through the
night without bleeding and oozing on my clothing.
I also discovered that surgical sites swell. A lot. Here I
was expecting my left breast to be smaller than the cancer-free right one, but it
was considerably larger for weeks. Larger and harder, almost like a ripe
cantaloupe. The swelling has gradually come down over the past eight weeks and
my breast is now the size I expected it to be … just a little smaller than the
right one, not really noticeable even in a bathing suit. Yay!
All in all, it was a full two weeks before I began to feel
anywhere near normal and another week beyond that before I could begin sleeping
in my bed again. I couldn’t lie down because if I did, I couldn’t roll over or
get back up. You don’t realize how much you miss your bed and the particular
position you sleep in until something happens where you can’t.
June 4 – Surgical Follow-up
I saw the surgeon a week after the surgery and he poked and
prodded both surgical sites pretty thoroughly. The lymph node site had only
bled a little up to this point; but after he poked and prodded, it began
bleeding in earnest. I expressed my concern to him about the bleeding, and he
assured me that the blood was “old blood” that needed to come out. He was a
little concerned about the allergic reaction site though, as it was a large
open wound, so he prescribed antibiotics to help heal it.
The surgeon informed me that the labs had come back and my sentinel
lymph node was clear! The margins surrounding the tumor were clear too! The
cancer was gone, just as promised in my blessing several months ago. It’s
always nice when science confirms what the priesthood has already pronounced
and faith has brought to pass. (Smile)
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