The dominoes are falling...

The port is in, but the dominoes keep falling because I will need to have a revision surgery for the tissue expander. Part of the Strattice that is supposed to be covering the expander at the bottom is not holding up as well as it should, which means that a fold of the half-inflated tissue expander is pressing against the surgery scar. 

This means that on Friday at 1:30 p.m.  I'll have to go under again to have the problem fixed (I will be so starved and dehydrated after fasting since midnight that finding a usable vein is going to be a major digging expedition!!!). Surgery number five in two and a half months, here I come! It is supposed to take no more than an hour. My boob man said he may want to use Alloderm on me this time, which is human-derived epidermis. However, when he first told me that he used to use Alloderm, he said he switched to Strattice because he found several of his patients had allergic reactions to the preservative in the Alloderm.

Now, as you may remember, an allergic reaction sent me to the ER just yesterday. So I am not excited about the prospect of yet another allergic reaction... I'd like to stick with the pork, please, since I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to that.

Apparently, one of the culprits for my allergic reaction yesterday was the antibiotic vancomycin, which can cause allergic reactions, both when infused too fast, but also when administered in conjunction with anesthetics (see this link for more information). I know for a fact that they did not put in my IV line until I was on the operating table. I only had saline on my IV line when I woke up -- and the surgery took less than an hour. So I'm thinking they both infused the drug too fast, and in conjunction with drugs that are known to increase infusion-related adverse events. And voila, here comes the allergic reaction of "lobster woman." Boy, I think I'll accumulate a lot of medical knowledge before this is all over...

In any case, this additional surgery is messing up the rest of my carefully planned medical schedule for the month. Obviously, with surgery on Friday, chemo on Thursday is out of the question. So I had to call to have it moved up one week, which both my boob man and my poison man agree should be long enough to permit me to heal sufficiently before getting my cocktails. Hence the new cocktail hour date is Thursday June 4 , 2009, a day after my mom flies back home. Oddly, they made my appointment for 2 p.m. However, my first round of AC chemo supposedly takes approximately six hours, as they will have to pre-medicate me with all kinds of additional stuff. So I suppose I won't be done until 8 p.m. then, which seems mighty late for closing hours, though perhaps not for cocktail hour... In any case, they assured me they would not leave before I'm done. Let's hope... but I'd better bring some good music, movies, books, FOOD, and -- of course, DH!!! On Friday the 5th, I'll then have to go back to the cancer center to get my Neulasta shot.

Thus all the dominoes fell, but undaunted (well, not quite -- I'll admit I was a little daunted at first...), I put them back up into their new places. What's a little more surgery after all...?

Tonight I had dinner with my friends no-l, 1l, and 2l, as well as DH and my mom. It was a nice little get-together that I particularly enjoyed, since no-l and 1-l will be moving up North at the end of the month for their sabbatical year. There will be an official goodbye party on Friday, which I will unfortunately have to skip due to the slicing and dicing I will undergo earlier that day. So this was my official little goodbye party with them.

I received another gift, though, this time from 2l, who got all creative. She got a little transparent egg carton and made little blue and pink pom-pom embies with little eyes, and some even with glasses (since I have bad eyes, and DH has some issues too), plus all with individual hearts. It's a dozen, of course, with gender parity, and all the cute little ones are sitting in their egg carton waiting to be hatched. How cute is that!!! They will have to sit next to the glass rooster I gave DH for our anniversary... It just makes me smile to look at them, and reminds me of the good things waiting for me once this not-so nice part is over...