It's been a good while since I posted last. There was someone a bit too obsessed with me at the time and I'm hoping by now he's gotten a life or a new person to stalk.
The surgery was a success. I mean, I'm here, right? It was a 16 hour surgery. At some point there was a lot of blood loss that set things back. Interestingly, I've read over the surgery notes and there was no mention of it "officially". I didn't quite have to have a blood transfusion but it got close to that. I was in the hospital for 4 days. I did everything I was supposed to so I could have the best recovery. There were weird electrode thingies sewn to where my nipples used to be so they could get a readout of oxygenation. I had a ton of wires and tubes all over. There were also 4 drains put in. The dilaudid was a no go. It made me itch from head to toe. I could hear the silent screams of a thousand addicts when they had to dump it all. I felt so bad for Shaun because he was stuck sleeping on a chair that sort of pulled out into a bed. He mostly slept in a ball but he barely left my side. The day I left they said I had to use the bathroom successfully to leave. I'm pretty sure my screams were heard blocks from the hospital. Next time I will take extra stool softeners before one of those types of procedures... Like 8 or 10. My femmelove was there and she was just holding back her tears. I had flowers and visitors come in but barely remember the first day. I guess there was a mix up in communication when my main surgeon came out after the mastectomy was completed. She worded things in a way that led them to believe I had cancer all throughout my lymph nodes. My mom and femmelove went into full meltdown mode and Shaun shut down. It wasn't until after the plastic surgeon came out and worded things differently that they discovered there were 3 nodes that tested positive, but 15 were removed.
Everything was set up at home so I could stay downstairs for the most part. We had to put up a barricade because the cats kept wanting to jump on my stomach. Lots of pillows were involved. The hardest part was sitting up in bed since my stomach muscles had been cut. I did have percocets but didn't like them either and spent way more time being nauseated than I ever did when I was on chemo. I decided to just stick with Tramadol.
After about the first week or 2, there was a huge storm that rolled in and some guy got stranded in his car behind our house. They had to do a helicopter rescue which was very exciting and I was up and down my stairs to get a different view point. Supposedly this over activity caused me to get a hematoma in my abdomen. We don't know what else could have caused it but it felt like I was pregnant with an alien life. I could feel it pushing my guts out of the way. By the time I went in to see my doctor about it, it had coagulated so he could not aspirate it. I was stuck with it. It slowly dissolved over time and came out of the hole where the drain had been but the swelling in that area remained.
Another crazy side effect I was dealing with the first week after the surgery was panic attacks. I could feel it coming on and my chest would feel tight. I would start feeling very panicky and emotional. We learned to deal with it quickly with a cold wet cloth on my head and a Xanax. Oh sweet blessed Xanax. After a few weeks I could do most things on my own. It was great having my mom around but was glad to see her go after 3 weeks.
I was all ready to be going back to work after that 6 weeks until my doctor told me I could not lift more than 15 pounds for another month or 6 weeks, which basically meant I could not work! I have to say, I'm SO GLAD I opted to pay for short and long term disability when I did. That has saved our bacon big time.
About a month or so ago, I had a long time friend of mine come over to the house. I've known her almost 20 years and she's like a second mother to me. I would have given my life to protect hers if need be. That's how much I loved her. She stole all my percocets! The entire bottle was emptied. She, of course, denies it vehemently but after I vauge posted about it on FB, no less than half a dozen people came forward knowing exactly who I was talking about and saying the same thing happened to them! I watched our whole group tear itself apart over this. People don't want to believe she would do such a thing, including myself. Shaun and I and a few others are now basically social pariahs with the group who refuse to believe it. It makes no difference to me. I have quite a few amazing people in my life so if a few reveal themselves to be turds, there's plenty more that aren't. I do not have a shortage of wonderful people in my life. She's pretty much dead to me now.
The thing I'm dealing with now is adhesive capsulitis. I've had it in my left shoulder since January but now am developing it in my right shoulder. The pain was getting really severe in my left shoulder and after a few docs told me that my pain level is greater than what it should be according to my MRI, I started investigating. As an experiment and a hunch, I stopped taking the Tamoxifen I'm on, which is preventing me from getting cancer again by blocking my estrogen. Within days, my pain levels came down and the crippling depression that hit me was gone. My oncologist insists the drug is not causing these side effects, yet the FB group I'm in begs to differ. Join pain, weight gain and depression are the most widely complained about side effects with it. I'm going through the motions and now on an anti-depressant and tomorrow I meet with pain specialists, to try to get the side effects under control. If that does not work, I will take my chances and stop taking the Tamoxifen. When I say I'm a quality over quantity kind of gal, I really mean it.
In the meantime, I'm looking for work that is in an office environment so I can actually work and not worry about how to care for a patient with a T-Rex arm. I'm in PT now too and I think that is helping me to manage the pain. I'm either in the frozen or thawing stage in that side. I've learned that the cause is largely unknown, there's no quick fix or cure for it and there's no way to prevent it from freezing. It just has to go through the stages and can take up to 3 years to get through all the stages. My PT guy is helping me to manage the pain while I go through the stages.
One other thing I've done in the past couple of months is I fostered 3 baby kittens. My vet sent out a call for someone willing to foster and I was home anyway so I volunteered for the job. A lady named Dawn brought a carrier with 3 tiny 2-week-old kittens. So sweet! One of them wouldn't take a bottle so she taught me how to stick a tube down her throat and squirt the milk in. We weren't sure if she was going to make it. She was in pretty bad shape in the beginning and I didn't get much sleep for a while. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Kitten tummies don't deal with that powder formula very well and we had to deal with a lot of constipation. I ended up sleeping next to them for at least the first week and had to set my alarm a lot. My life was a series of naps. I couldn't really go anywhere for long because they would need to be fed every 4 hours. The real skinny one I fed every 2 hours for a few days until she could catch up a little. After 3 weeks of that, I finally got them to eat gruel from a bowl. What a relief! I also got them to start using a litter box. That was a lot of time freed up for me. Several days after they started eating from a bowl I started posting about them needing to be adopted and 2 got adopted right away, both in our neighborhood. I still had the runt for another week. I posted cute pics and videos of her and finally someone came forward wanting to adopt her. We drove to Waco to meet them halfway and they are so in love with her. She turned out to be such an amazing little kitty with a strong and brave spirit. I think she will have a great life. I am FB friends with all the new kitty moms and love to see the pictures they post. I was very heavily emotionally invested in them and really just needed to have one success this year where I felt like I did something worthwhile that gave me a sense of purpose. I definitely feel like I got that out of the experience and so grateful to Dawn for all the coaching she did with me. I'm thinking about having her show me how to do live trapping where they catch the cats, sterilize them and let them go again. I have no idea what my future schedule is going to be like yet but if I have the time I would totally do it.
The biggest thing I've gotten out of this year, besides awesome boobs and a flat stomach, is how much my relationship with Shaun has grown and blossomed. It truly has been a beautiful thing. I'm grateful for so much this year but also ready for it to be behind me so I can get my life back to "normal".
