Recovery

I’m back home. And I feel so much better. Thursday was very hard. We got to the hospital at 8:00 and got signed in. They called me back pretty quickly. I got the robe on and they started me on the IV. Ouch! Very painful. It was one of the hand ones, which I don’t like. Then they took me in for the needle biopsy. They had me in the same machine that the stereotactic biopsy but it wasn’t as painful. They had to inject some blue dye and a wire so that Dr. Moynihan could see what he was doing. Then they took me back to my waiting space. L was in there with me as well. Around 10:00, they took me in for the nuclear insertion part. Oh man, that was painful. They had to prick me 4 times in the nipple area, and that hurt, hurt, hurt.

Then it was back to my little area. The surgery wasn’t scheduled until 1:45, so we had several hours. I slept a lot of that time, answered a lot of questions, slept more. But the best news – Dr. M. came in and told me that the results of my right side were benign! So that’s one thing I didn’t have to worry about.

They came in and got me ready for surgery – gave me the pain medicine and the stuff to knock me out. And I didn’t remember anything. Nothing at all. I woke up, and was just in some pain. But I didn’t get sick, which was good. We had to wait for Dr. M. to come back and give us the update before we could be released. So he came to talk to us, and that was also good news. The lymph node was clear!! The cancer didn’t spread. So I’m extremely grateful about that as well.

Thursday night was pretty rough. They gave me Vicodin for the pain, and I have to keep taking that until I don’t have any more pain. I don’t need to be brave about this. I’m keeping ice on the left side, and that helps as well. I’ve been resting, parked on the couch. It’s starting to drive me crazy, since I’m not good at sitting on my butt. But I have to do it.

And my friends are wonderful. L sent me some earrings with the breast cancer ribbon on it, some socks, and the magnet. C sent me the Chicken Soup book and a necklace. Work sent me a build-a-bear, dressed in hospital gear (it’s sooo cute). The football crew sent me some yellow and white flowers in a smiley cup. C and A sent me some beautiful flowers, and so did JP. LW sent me a few cards. But nothing from B. Not even a phone call. And that hurts, especially since her mom went through this. But that’s just how she is.

It’s still a pretty scary thing to think about. I changed the gauze today, and the scar isn’t pretty. My breast is flattened in, which I just didn’t expect. And I should have. I can’t tell what the lymph node scar is yet – I haven’t really looked at that yet. And I don’t know what my breast will turn out to look like once the sutures are out.