Recovery

Going back to the beginning to talk about recovery will almost be impossible to recollect and is probably why it has taken me so long to post this.  I will recall what I can and it will probably be in tidbits so that I can share the most important parts with you.

The quickest way to sum up my recovery from major surgery is PAINFUL, DIFFICULT, FRUSTRATING, SLOW, PAINFUL, UNCOMFORTABLE, APPRECIATIVE. I know most of those are negative projections of my recovery but that is because I am still in it.  It has been just shy of 3 weeks and I believe I will still have another 3 to get full use of my arms.

Hospital Recovery
There are only a few things that I remember from being in the hospital after surgery and the main one was excruciating pain.  I'm not sure that adjective truly defines my pain level but you thing about the highest level of pain possible and I believe I felt it.  I was highly medicated with morphine, but it did not relieve my pain.  The nurses had to get a special order from my doctor for an IV pain medication called Dilaudid and it did help immensely, but in only 4 hour increments.  Because this drug was in IV form, I had to be able to tolerate the pain with pills like Percacet and Valium before I could go home and that is why I was in the hospital for three nights.

The thing I hated the most about staying at the hospital is that they made me get up to pee.  I was helpless, I could not use my arms to push myself up out of bed.  I was completely reliant on the nurses to use sheets to move me into position and then for me to use my legs to get up.  That process was soooo painful!  It brings tears to my eyes just remembering it.  You can image the number of times you would need to get up and pee in a three day period.  I would hold it as long as I possibly could.  When I let John know that I needed to go, I would begin to cry because I knew the amount of pain I was going to be in.  Also, having many different nurses due to shift changes using there own techniques once I got one down with the previous nurses was frustrating and made me angry.  (I think I was polite every other time.)  By the end, I was having John and my Dad help me because I could trust them more and they saw how painful it was for me each time, so they took extra precautions to ease the pain if they could.  Come to think about it...I don't know how that all worked out at home.  I will have to ask John later because I don't remember.

Home Recovery
I do not remember preparing to go home, the ride home or most of the first week.  I was in such a haze from pain medication that that time has been taken away from me except what John can tell me and maybe I can recall.  Oh, I remember seeing a recliner in my living room and that has been where I have slept and still sleep.  I can't wait to give your chair back, Dad, but what a thoughtful and precious gift to have because I don't know how I could have managed without it.

I was completely helpless for two weeks.  I needed help with everything and I mean everything.  I was proud of how I was accepting of the help and not fighting it.  I did/do not feel like I have been lazy or taking advantage of the situation (except maybe a few times).  I know some of you are thinking how could anyone think that in such a time, but that was my thing before cancer.  I was very proud and did not need help from others.  I was strong enough to do things on my own.  Now as I reflect, all I did was prolong the healing and stave off wonderful friends and family from support.  I am a much more humble person now and that is not a bad thing.

Appreciative was among my recovery process.  I have this keen awareness of many, many things I have taken for granted because it has been taken from me.  Not having the use or the full use of both arms limits or has limited my ability to do things for myself.  A few off the top of my head...feeding myself...brushing my teeth...washing myself...reaching for anything that was above my shoulders (now I am at the point of not being able to reach over my head).  Having pectoral muscles cut has made it difficult or impossible to...spring up out of my chair...lay on my side or stomach...sneeze...open things (especially pill bottles)...have a good long stretch after waking up in the morning...squeeze my husband and children the way I want to so badly hug them.  I can declare that the mastectomies are much harder and longer to recover from than the reduction.  I was only out of work for three days along with the weekend with the reduction.

I am also appreciative of the help and support through all of this.  The meals, the check-ins and kind words of encouragement.  Especially grateful to John's mom who has been staying with us and helping with the cooking and caring for the boys among so many other things.  It has taken worry off of my mind as I recover.

At this point...
I am able to use my arms more and more but not completely.  I can finally take care of my own personal hygiene.  I can't drive yet.  Oh, I have hair growing back.  That has been going on for about two weeks now.  My head looks like a fuzz ball.  The hair on my legs are growing back.   :(  I did end up losing my eyebrows and eyelashes and they are just now starting to grow back in.

What's Next...
This Wednesday, January 2nd, will be three weeks after surgery, and I will have my stitches removed and expanded once again.  I think the expansion will be a weekly process or as long as I can handle the discomfort from the stretching.

That's all for now!  Happy a very happy and safe New Year!!!!

Boob Talk

My husband unwittingly shared some information in his post.  It is no fault to him because he knew I was going to talk about it at some point, but I ran out of time before surgery came along.  I debated for some time whether or not to share about my breast reduction because of its very personal nature, however, I am trying to be as open as possible with the happenings in my life.  Also, after all that I have gone through so far, modesty with my breasts went out the window awhile ago.

I have had a love/hate relationship with my breasts.  I was happy that I was endowed, however, not happy that I was over-endowed.  I am/was an athletic person and my boobs were a hindrance while playing sports.  Also, I was suffering with back pain and seeing a chiropractor regularly for years.

Two and a half years ago, I opted to have a breast reduction.  Before my reduction I was a cup size "F" (that is not a typo...that is "F" as in F-REAL!  :)  ).  When I was pregnant with my second child, I was at my largest size "I".  I didn't know that those sizes existed until I got them!  The reduction brought me down to a "D" and I was happy with that.  The doctor actually wouldn't go any lower because he thought reducing them any smaller would affect the overall look after the healing.  I didn't share this with very many people because this was before my personal breakthrough of share myself with others.

Ironically, I am down to nothing...for now. I went from a "DD" to a training bra.  I will go into my recovery in another post.  Just yesterday they were able to add some fluid to my tissue expanders.  The expanders are quite hard and weird feeling to the touch but those will be removed eventually.  There is a port in the expander that is detected by magnet and then marked for the very large needle to be inserted.  Entering the expander port site feels much different from the chemo port site.  It felt more like a lot of pressure at the site and then as the fluid is being pushed in.  The chemo entry was much more of a stinking pain.  I don't like it either way, but will take the expander insertion over the chemo ones.  John was at the appointment and he said it looked like they filled each breast with about 50 cc of fluid which in other words he thought was a lot.  It doesn't appear to be a lot from the looks afterward.

I was debating on whether to go with a size "C" or "D" before all this happened.  John said my plastic surgeon decided to implant the larger size because most women with large breast have a hard time going down to a small size.  I find that hard to believe, but all in all it was the best decision because he doesn't have to fill then all the way up.  I can make the decision to go larger when that time comes.

Next Wednesday I go back to have my stitches removed and more fluids inserted.  Hopefully, there will be more normalcy after that happens.

I promise to make a post really soon about my recovery progress.  I hope tomorrow but had to make this post for clarification.

Surgery Day

Hello to all. I'm Christina's husband, John. I just want to update everyone.

Christina and I arrived at the hospital a little after 8am. Her mom and dad were already there greeting us at the door. We waited for about 20 minutes before they called Christina in to be prepped. By a little after 9am, she was allowed to have visitors until surgery time. Her sister, Mary DePriest had arrived around this time as well. Surgery was supposed to start around 10am. As of yesterday, our surgeon had thought it was at 10:30 until she was informed 10am by her staff. She tried to adjust the schedule the best that she could and ended up arriving just before 11am. The waiting before surgery started was hard for me. I was very anxious during the wait. Christina was in good spirit. During the wait, a doctor explained everything that was going to happen and the state she would be in when she woke. We were actually in the same prep room as when she had her breast reduction surgery (I guess it's the plastic surgeon's favorite room.)

The bilateral mastectomy was performed first by Dr. Suppas. She thought it would take around 75 minutes, but it took approximately 105 minutes. Everything went great. She removed a couple of nodes for testing reasons which came back clean (YAY!!!!!!) The good breast was removed first and the plastic surgeon was able to begin on that side while Dr. Suppas removed the breast with cancer. I'm really grateful for Dr. Suppas. If there is a time when you want to see someone confident in what they do, it's a surgeon. She has that in spades.

Dr. Puckett is her plastic surgeon again. He was done by a little before 2pm. Everything went well with his part too. Two of his assistants were finishing the surgery, while he updated me. We are actually in his care now for the next few weeks. I had to wait until Christina was fully awake before I would see her.

I finally got to see her again at 3:38pm. Christina was in an intense amount of pain. The surgeon wants nothing to move, so she is bandaged really tight around her chest. She cannot take a big breath because of it, which she really wants to do because of the pain it is causing. For the first few minutes I was with her, her eyes were streaming with tears from the pain. They have given her some morphine, percocet, and vallium. She can only get so much until she has eaten, which she can't really do until she is moved to the in-patient room.

She is currently in room 4411 at Women's and Children's Hospital. I started this post around 5pm, but because of everything that's happened since getting to the room, I'm finishing it now after 9:30pm. I'll save some of that for another post. She was happy to finally eat her first meal of the day. Breakfast at 6:30pm (YAY!!!! again, she loves breakfast) - french toast, sausage patties, cinnamon roll, chocolate milk, and Pepsi. She was happy for that moment.

You may not have heard much from me before, and I may not have thanked some of you yet, but I'm really grateful for all the thoughts and prayers for Christina and our family. We cannot thank you enough, but we will pay and pray it forward for you. We have seen God's love through your acts and words, and we hope you are all blessed tenfold.

Love to all,

John

Telling the Boys About Surgery

I needed to tell the boys about my upcoming surgery since they were catching bits and pieces from my conversations with others.  It was just me telling them since John was not there at the time I decided to share this information.  Hindsight, I would have made sure he was there to help with the explaining.  I did this about a week ago.

I let them know that I was having surgery on Wednesday and would probably be in the hospital for two nights.  They both looked sad and asked why.  I reminded them that I have cancer in my booby and since I have finished chemo that now I have to have surgery....here we go....here comes my bluntness......to cut off my boobies.  I know, I know....as soon as I said it I wished I could have taken it back.  The boys looked at me with wide eyes and I had to start back-peddling and find better choices of words.  I think I was able to better explain but the damage was done.  I scared my boys if they were not scared already.  (I need more parenting lessons!)  During our talk, there were a couple of times that Aden, my oldest, would clinch his fists and shake them saying, "I just want everything back to normal."  I felt so sad for him and tried to explain that this is our new normal for a while but things will get better and over time I will have my hair back and have energy to do more things with both of them.

During this journey, Aden has not shared with his friends about my cancer.  I tried  to encourage him to share as much as he was comfortable with so that it didn't seem like a secret.  He has had friends over a few times and I would walk around without my hat.  I'm sure they are confused and wonder what is wrong.  I understand that by not telling anyone, then it just stays in the family and everything else is normal for him on the outside.  Surprisingly, the next day after our surgery talk, he came home from school and said that he told two of his friends about my surgery coming up.  He said that one of his friend's and her mom would like to make a meal for us.  This was a great teaching moment...I let him know how courageous it was for him to share that with his friends and by doing that, gave his friends the opportunity to want to help and support him.  A few minutes later, I get a phone call.  It was the girl's mother.  She has seen me bald but never asked any questions and I never just came out and told her.  Anyway, she was hesitantly asking how I was doing and I told her what I was going through.  She said "That makes since based on what my daughter told me.  I just wanted to call and make sure what was coming from my 8-year-old's mouth was true.  She told me that you were having your boobies cut off."  I chuckled and told her that was true.  Obviously, what I said to Aden stuck with him.  I can only imagine what his other friend's parents might be thinking.  :)

Even now, Aden comes up to me and hugs me and tells me he doesn't want me to have surgery.  I comfort him the best that I can.  I know I haven't said much about Kalen, but he doesn't say much about it.  He just goes on with what he does in his world.  I need to check in with him tonight to see what he is feeling or thinking.

It is going to be hard leaving them tomorrow morning.  They are going to school, and I can't imagine what they might be thinking or how they will act.  I have let their teachers know so I am comforted knowing that there will be some eyes on them tomorrow.

Surgery Scheduled

My surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. at the Missouri Center for Outpatient Surgery which is south of, and attached to, the Women's and Children's Hospital on Keene Street.  I will be admitted to the Women's and Children's Hospital after surgery for at least one night but more than likely two.

I have seen both of my doctors for pre-op.  I met with my breast surgeon last week.  She feels, based on my Sentinel Biopsy that was done with my first surgery, that she will not have to remove any lymph nodes.  She won't know for certain until she is in there but the likelihood of her needing to is slim.  This is great news!!  Recovery should be a little easy just because of that.  She will remove the porta-cath at that time as well.

I met with my plastic surgeon yesterday and was overwhelmed with information.  I will try and explain the process the best I can.  After the breast surgeon removes all of the breast tissue, then the plastic surgeon will insert tissue expanders under my pectoral muscles which will then be filled with a small amount of fluid to start the expansion.  About 2 weeks later, they will fill them with more fluid to continue the expansion.  They will fill with as much as they can before radiation to give me some volume since once radiation starts, they will not do anything further for at least a year.  I was quite surprised by such a delay.  Radiation causes the skin to become taut and tender and attempting to expand during that time would be damaging to the skin.  Once they are able to start the expansion process again, they will fill to my desired size and then another surgery will be required to remove the expanders and insert the implants.  Down the road there will be another surgery to create nipples.  Then a procedure to tattoo on an areola so that I have an appearance of natural boobs.  This will be a very long process but worth it to me in the end.

The surgery will take about 3 hours to complete: 1 hour for the breast surgeon and 2 hours for the plastic surgeon.  I will have drainage tubes protruding from my body and will not be removed until 10 days later.

As you can imagine, I am nervous about the surgery and the pain I am going to experience.  I have been through this before but this one seems like it will be harder on my body and take longer to recover both physically and emotionally.  I know there are prayers out there for me so I don't need to ask!  OK, I'm going to ask anyway...please keep me and my family in your prayers next week.  :)

Love to you all!