So .... it's been a little over two weeks since my first surgery and tomorrow it will be a week since the second. I guess I am doing okay but the healing up and getting unsore process seems to be draggin' its ass a little. One thing is for sure, I will shout from the rooftops the glorifications (is that a word?) of Vicodin. In Tarzan-speak: "Pain, bad, Vicodin, Good."
The incision in my breast has been relatively painless. Surprisingly so. In fact, the only time I was aware of that surgical site was immediately after the second surgery when, in recovery, it felt like a herd of feral guinea pigs had been rooting around in there. When nurse Valerie asked how I was I let her know about the herd of feral guinea pigs and she immediately gave me a shot of something wonderful in my IV.
No, the real sore spot is my arm pit where the lymph node dissection is. That and the opening in my side where the drain is. Dave keeps telling me how great my incisions look (Saint Dave), but they sure as heck feel like they were done with a dull spoon and pointed stick!
My appreciation for high powered drugs is only superceded by my restored passion for FOOD! I've always liked food .. but Dave says I am eating like a refugee victim. I can't help it. These new taste buds require constant entertainment. Everything tasts so good! Those twenty lbs. I lost? Hmmmphf. They'll be fully restored soon. Dang it.
My hair is coming back. I actually have a hairline. Not a bikini line (TMI?) but a hair line. Dave loves running his fingers thru it. All 3/4" of it. So do I. Mom says we're going to wear it out and to leave it alone.
My skin is falling off. I guess it's chemo (everything awful IS, you know), but no amount of lotion or baby oil seems to quench my skin. As soon as I loose my drain (next week?), I will get in the tub and scrub myself from head to toe with sea salt and maybe I'll stop shedding.
My primary complaint is this weird, constant vague pain and numbness (yeah, I know, seems contradictory!) that runs from my shoulder to my elbow along the back of my left arm. Feels so sore it should be black and blue. I made the mistake of googling "arm pain after lymph node dissection" and all this STUFF came up that matched my symptoms perfectly. Some say that even 5 years after surgery, they still have the pain and numbness but that you learn to live with it. Apparently, the lymph node surgery causes the nerves to go postal and they never recover!
Consider the alternative.
My largest fear at this point is doing this again in five or ten or fifteen years. It's shoved down deep, not something I will dwell on (after all, I'm still pretty excited about hair and taste buds!) but it is something I think every cancer patient must think of. Ignorance is bliss and I am no longer ignorant.
During my chemo I followed this blog. I liked this lady, Marjorie Walker. She was spunky and honest and didn't feel sorry for herself. Her journey with breast cancer started fifteen years ago with a lumpectomy. It ended last Friday. Even though I knew she was terminal, it made me really sad today when I read that she had died. And though we had never met, I was grateful for her story, her strength, her feisty attitude.
This song was one of her selections for her funeral ... I thought that was very cool.
I'm looking forward to seeing my surgeon, Doctor B, next week. It should be time for my drain to come out (yay!) and hopefully she'll release me to the care of the radiologist whom I will see the following day. It's too soon after surgery to start radiation but hopefully my appointments will be scheduled within a couple of weeks. Soon this will all just be a dusty spot in my rearview mirror. Herschel who?
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