Alive & Well

At least all except the huge pain in my side! Once again I have a drain tube in my side, and it hurts like all hell! Once I go through all these surgeries I'm going to have so many round scars that you will be able to play connect the dots on each side! My chest (where the hole was) so far feels good (don't know what it looks like yet, as it's all bandaged up) - it's just the pain that I have in my side from this tube. But at least all went well, and I'm home again in my nice comfy velour track pants and t-shirt.....lounging around, watching TV, and surfing the net. Sounds fun, eh? Ruben ran up to the store to pick up the Ratatouille Movie.
Hopefully things will continue going this well, and the pain from the rube will subside a bit.
Hope y'all are doing better than me!

One down one to go

Followed up at the PS office today. I made an appointment to be seen because I didn't like the way my left side was healing. In fact I guess you could say it wasn't healing. Some of the tissue around the incision site was dying, as it was black. Since my right side was healing up nicely, they went ahead and removed the drain tube from that side, but left my staples intact. Not sure when they will remove the staples, most likely once my left side starts draining less and the tube is ready to be taken out. But since I have tissue that has turned black and is dying on the left side I have to go meet with an on-call doctor tomorrow (my actual PS is out of town, and won't be back for another week.) So this on-call doctor that I am supposed to see tomorrow is going to cut me open in his office, trim away the dead tissue, and suture it closed once again. It doesn't sound like much fun. In fact it sounds pretty damn painful, but I'm sure he will give me some local anesthetic to ease the pain. All in all it's better than going back into the hospital, and a hell of a lot better than having the tissue expander removed and being told I have to wait 6 months before trying reconstruction again - which is what happened when reconstruction failed last time on my right breast. So tomorrow morning I will just get up, take my pain meds and a xanax to chill my ass out. Hopefully it will be enough to withstand a panic attack. I've noticed since my surgery that when I've had panic attacks lately that my chest muscles seize up. They tighten and won't relax no matter how hard I try to calm down. Trust me, it is NOT a pleasant feeling! Luckily when they removed the breast tissue from the left side, the doctor left plenty of loose skin around the tissue expander, so them having to cut away the dead tissue is no problem. Wish me luck!! I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm still here

It's been nearly a week since my surgery for bi-lateral breast reconstruction. My right side, where they placed a tissue expander, and in which the breast tissue had been removed previously, is healing quite nicely. I've already re-gained most of my strength and range of motion on that side. My left side, however, is a whole other story. The incision site still looks pretty gnarly, and overall that side still hurts like hell! Obviously given the surgery, I expected a longer healing time, and more pain. They removed my left breast tissue prior to placing the tissue expander, but since it's been almost a week since surgery, I thought I might at least be up and about by now. My guess is that since my draining tubes are still intact, my mobility has been limited as well as my pain increased. These damn tubes make it impossible to be comfortable, so I am still bed-ridden. According to the follow-up I had with my doctor on Friday, I couldn't have the tubes removed as they are draining more fluid than he would like. I have to wait till it goes down significantly before he will agree to remove them. In the meantime, I have to watch them closely, as infection can travel back up the tubing and my course of anti-biotics is over. I'm hoping that I will lose the drains by mid-week, or weeks end at the latest! My concern over the healing incision has teetered back and forth. The one time I looked at it, I freaked. I'm scared of the possibility of another failed reconstruction, although this would be a first if it happened to the left side. Either way I don't want anymore surgeries than I have to have! Ruben heads back to work tomorrow, and his Mom left today, so we're a little worried by the fact that I am still bed-ridden. Of course Danny is still here to help, but he can't take me to the doctor's or to run errands. Natalie has to be enrolled in school, as the school year starts on 8/15. So much to do, and no time to do it in! I can't wait to be feeling better, and be back on my feet. I have so many projects on my desk that I would rather be working on, instead of just lying here watching TV and sleeping half the day. But I can't risk scrapping even one page and pulling a stitch. I'm being extra careful this time so I don't botch this surgery. I wonder how many more weeks of this I have before I am in the clear?

Home from the Hospital

Well here I am post-operation. They discharged me late yesterday afternoon, despite the horrible painful feeling I still had in my back/shoulder blades/armpits. With the way I had felt, I didn't even think I would be able to get off the bed to go to the bathroom, as I was unable to even reposition myself in another position. So for the first two nights I was miserable being unable to move, stuck in the same spot for like 8 hours straight.
When I woke up today after spending my first night at home, I was feeling better. Still a lot of sore areas that hurt (I imagine that those spots will hurt for a while) but I managed to get myself out of bed to go to the bathroom without Ruben's help. I think that the majority of the pain I feel in my armpit area is from these damn tubes I have. I really hate drain tubes, but I hope that this will help to ensure a successful surgery. The tubes and the few staples I have in my right breast will probably be removed. I'm hoping that this is when he will start the saline injections. The right side will need lots of time and enough saline to fully stretch to size, the left side will need less than the right side. The reason why the left side isn't already the correct size, is because the mastectomy I had done was a skin sparring, so a good layer of breast tissue had been left behind, leaving behind a small area for the expander. But at least this way I get to choose the size that I want. I just hope that when I have them swapped out for Implants in a couple months, that it won't hurt as bad, or feel as bad as then!

Now I must go pass out, I've been fighting it for the last hour. Hopefully this post makes sense!