Another night, another surgery for which I need to get ready. It is the second one for this week. When the ambulatory surgery center called to confirm my arrival time for tomorrow, they could barely believe that I will have to go under the knife again so soon. At least there were no extra blood draws to contend with, I just need to arrive at the center two hours before my surgery so they can fill out the paperwork for the procedure.
Hopefully the revision surgery will take care of the pesky tissue expander fold sticking out so that the rest of my reconstruction can progress smoothly. I had two instances when I felt a really nasty stabbing pain, one after each time I got pumped up. Each time it was the kind of pain that takes you breath away in a bad way, so I am assuming those were the moments when something came loose. When I looked at the problematic area this morning, it really seemed worse than it was two weeks ago when I last saw my boob man. So it is important to get this fixed. I am just getting tired of getting cut up all the time, and having the resulting healing pains and limitations to my range of motion, and all the other stuff that comes in the aftermath of surgery. So I'm trying to work on that whole serenity thing again tonight.
It has been a slow and tired day for me, as it is the second day after my port insertion. Once again, I feel worse on day two after the surgery than the first day. How odd is that? Maybe because of the drugs the ER doctor prescribed for my rash I couldn't sleep very well and managed to get only four hours of shuteye last night. I am sure that this did not help me feel any better, either. So in a way I am glad that I did not have to start chemo today, of all days, but that I could spend the day resting and healing some more.
I got to take off my surgical dressing on the port insertion scar today. It looks like the scar is about two inches long, with the port (which is about the size of a quarter) inserted approximately 2.5 inches below my clavicle. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be any infection nor bruising from that surgery. It is just too bad that Dr. R said they shouldn't use the port to administer anesthesia, as I am afraid that my late surgery time (1:30 p.m.) and the necessarily long fast resulting from it will make my veins hide even more than usual. So I will have to make sure to eat a bunch more stuff before midnight and to keep hydrating very well so that the nurses will have a chance of getting an IV line into me tomorrow.
What's another little surgery, right? Just to keep track of things, I have added a counter of chemo rounds to go, surgeries, and ER visits to the right sidebar of this blog. Given that these events keep piling up in greater numbers than anticipated, I felt the need to keep an official count. Scroll down and take a look at them if you will and let me know what you think.
I'll try to stay up late tonight and then sleep in tomorrow morning in an effort to make my NPO time more tolerable. I hate smelling coffee on surgery mornings and breakfast, all the while knowing that I cannot even have a sip of water (other than the one sole sip I get to down the obligatory pre-surgery pepcid...). As you can probably tell, I am not big on the whole fasting thing. Can somebody invent surgery without fasting, please?!!! I get really cranky when hypoglycemic, and my veins shrink away when that happens...
Anyway, I took a little nap this afternoon to preserve my strength. In the morning and the afternoon I even managed to tidy the house a bit and work my way through part of the paperwork that has been piling up everywhere (most of it is related to the poor state of my health -- yet another reason why I am starting to think that being sick is basically a full-time job). So overall, it has been a slow but nonetheless sort of productive day for me.
Well, I am almost ready for surgery number five! Let's hope my boob man has managed to overcome his jetlag from his European travels, and that he will be able to fix up my foobie and contain it within its proper boundaries.
2 comments:
I love the graphics in the new countdown/count-up!
Courtesy of Henry David Thoreau, with a bit of modification...
"To her whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come.... For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention."
Perhaps some morning time in your beautiful garden can distract you from the lack of breakfast...
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