Choosing the Lumpectomy route had more benefits than I had initially contemplated. Not only was it the less invasive surgery but it also took less time to book and also had a shorter recovery period. #winning (at the cancer life, not actual life).
I got in for surgery on March 7th, exactly a month after my initial diagnosis. Pretty happy about that! If I had chosen to do a Mastectomy, my surgery probably wouldn’t have been until at least the first week of April. For a Mastectomy and reconstructive surgery you need to align the schedules of the breast cancer surgeon and the plastic surgeon since it’s all done at the same time. I had only found out that March 7th was the surgery date about 5 days prior, so “preparation” was minimal at best. Mark and I attended a surgery prep course the day before my surgery. It was helpful but there were topics of discussion that mentioned “stop doing this at least a week prior to surgery”, “make sure you do this at least 2 days prior to surgery”…..well I had less than 24 hours, so I stuck to the ”night before” tips and the “day of tips”, and hoped for the best.
One of the tips they told me that day though was I needed a bra that attached at the back “DUH!” what was I thinking. Obviously I wasn’t going to get my sports bra over my head. They also said I needed a shirt that either buttoned or zipped in the front “DUH!”. Would have been helpful if those kind of shirts were in style right now. I went back into my closet and had nothing except for a body fitting lululemon zip up which wouldn’t do. Off to the mall it was. Where do you find a comfortable and supportive fitting bra that attaches at the back?.....Yeah I came up with nothing. I went to so many stores and then finally a light bulb came to me and I veered straight for the Bay. You can always count on the Bay. I found some great ones – so if anyone needs one, the Bay is where you go. To be honest, the bra that I ended up getting, I wish I had used for my entire life – it’s amazing. How about those silver linings right?....meh
I can’t tell you how calm I felt that day heading to the hospital for the surgery. It sounds odd, but the fact that I had opted out of the Mastectomy gave me such a sense of relief, that my surgery was going to minor in comparison. I got to the room and had bought a small coffee because the prep course told me I could drink clear liquids (coffee included) up until 5 hours prior. My surgery was at 1:30pm but I had to get there for 8am. Technically I was good until 8:30am. So there I was sipping away on my coffee and the nurse walked in and was like “what are you doing! You can’t drink anything”…… you can imagine my reaction to this. “how much did you have?”. Thankfully I am a slow coffee drinker. To think that a few sips of coffee could have delayed my surgery – my mind can’t even go there. They should probably correct their prep guidance….. just a thought. All was good though. They decided a few sips of coffee wasn’t’ going to kill me. For anyone who is curious, the liquid consumption is associated to the anesthesia they give me. They don’t want me to vomit while on the operating table. Cute.
Part of the surgery includes a sentinel node biopsy. “huh?”. What that means is they take out the first few nodes that drain the breast. 5-10 years ago they didn’t have the technology to do this, so the default was to take out all of the lymph nodes in the armpits. This can cause a lot of issues short and long-term, and so they came up with a method to only take out the most important ones. They do this by injecting radioactive dye into the breast and they are able to see which nodes drain the breast first because those nodes will have the dye in them. Cool right? Or maybe not cool but it’s up there. You’re probably thinking “wait, you said that your lymph nodes were clear?”. They do this anyways as a precautionary method.
I got into the operating room and it is as weird as you might think it is. Well anyone can guess who has watched Greys. 10 people around you touching you, poking and prodding you. Somehow nobody told me that when they administer the anesthesia, your chest immediately feels really heavy and you have a hard time breathing….this would have been nice to know ahead of time. So they put the mask on me and I couldn’t breathe. I look up at the nurse with this “I am dying!! Help me!!” face, but she did not react the way I hoped she would. She just told me to keep breathing….. BUT I CAN’T!.... oh wait, if I try, I kind of can…. And then I was out. They should definitely give a heads up about that non breathing thing.
I woke up completely drowsy. It felt good to have droopy eye lids and just fall back to sleep any time I woke up. Mark met me outside the OR when they wheeled me out. Such a nice feeling seeing a familiar face right after an ordeal like that. We got back up to the room and Mark had gotten me some flowers. Apparently all the nurses in the ward commented on him as he walked by holding them – best boyfriend of the day award! But best yet, that thing was OUT OF ME! Woop!
Being in that hospital bed, with the tubes hooked up to me and the packaged hospital food in front of me was an eerie feeling. Again, how did I get on this side of all of this??. To be the person that everyone looks at with sympathy and a lot of “are you ok?”, “how are you feeling?”. The worst was when I had to go to the bathroom for the first time and I had to wheel that damn IV pole in there with me. Ridiculous. This shouldn’t be my life right now!!! I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, the reality staring back at me was too much to handle. “yes, pole, I see you in my peripherals, you shouldn’t be with me right now!”.
The next few days were rough. You really start to realize what little things you take for granted every day! Like lifting yourself down and out of bed – that was a hard one. Did you know you use your peck muscles when you lift yourself out of bed? I didn’t. Definitely thought it was all abs. I was given pain meds that weren’t strong enough, so that was fun. My angel Laura helped me get a new prescription from the hospital though, and that stuff definitely worked! There is an unfortunate side effect of these major pain meds though, which I won’t go into detail on, but it certainly motivated me to get off of them asap. I think by day 4 I stopped taking them.
I religiously did my exercises each day, making sure I would get that flexibility back! By two weeks out I was getting my arm above my head and by 3 weeks I started to get back into yoga. Felt great! May have been premature but I needed it to remind myself that I was still me. One thing I had to deal with was what is called “cording”. It doesn’t happen in all cases, but I got it – obviously. Basically it feels like there is a very tight and painful cord going from your lower rib cage all the way to your wrist and it feels like if you stretch your arm too far it’s going to snap. It just takes extra and more frequent stretching, but it took a while to go away. Yoga helped A LOT – as it does with all aspects of life! At 4 weeks out now, I feel like I have pretty much all my mobility back except for some lingering tenderness, but that is manageable!
All in all, it was a minor operation and recovery was great! I have a scar that will remind me of it for the rest of my life but it’s a scar I can easily cover up so I’m certainly not quick to get upset about that. Also, I am incredibly thankful that I was able to do surgery first – it amplifies that I have a less aggressive cancer than most women my age. While I have to live with the C word for the rest of my life, that doesn’t mean I can’t find perspective still! You can ALWAYS put life into perspective.
I would like to take a minute and thank all the AMAZING people who have offered their time and money dropping off food, coming by to hang out, sending me messages. It has made this process so much better and I am incredibly thankful for all of it. You are what keeps me strong!
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