A Pound of Flesh

                The days before surgery are very strange.  You know a part of your body will only be attached to you for a little while longer.  It is such a bizarre thought that you don’t know fully what to do with it.  Do you mourn?  Do you throw a going away party?  Do you focus on saying goodbye or distract yourself and not focus on anything?    I mostly went for distraction. 

                I received a lot of phone calls leading up to the surgery, and I am sure I sounded more like a robot than I did a person.  Everyone had the same questions, and I felt so detached from the situation it was more like rehearsing a script for a play than discussing my surgery.

“When is surgery?”

“Friday.”

“What time?”

“They don’t tell us till Thursday night.”

“Who is going?”

“Adam and his parents.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Nope.”

“How do you feel?”

“I feel how anyone would feel…I feel like someone who has cancer…someone who is losing their breasts in a few days…someone who normally feels like shit from chemo…someone who has a handful of days left to feel good and feel whole….someone who just wants to enjoy this small window of feeling normal…someone who doesn’t want precious moments of normalcy to be interrupted by asking them to get emotional about something that they cannot change…someone who will have plenty of time to consider how they feel as they lay in bed recuperating from surgery…”

                Okay so maybe I didn’t say all that.  I think I said,

“Fine.  Let’s not talk about it.”

I was slotted to show up at the hospital at 5:45 in the morning.  At first I was distressed, because I am not a morning person, but it turned out to be a real blessing.  I was so tired that by the time I got to the hospital I was willing to do everything and anything for the medical staff as long as they let me lay down in one of their hospital beds as I did it.  Time moved fairly quickly, because I was in an early morning-walking-talking-sleep coma and I wasn’t allowed any coffee to cure it.  Before I knew it I was ushered down the hallway, I was asked to say goodbye to Adam and his parents, and suddenly I felt very awake.

The goodbye is awkward at best.  You are standing with people who you love and medical staff who are watching and waiting.  It’s not a hallmark moment.  It’s a scary moment where you realize you don’t want to say goodbye, but if you do anything more than a quick hug and walk away you’ll find yourself crying and clinging to them in the middle of the hallway.  A moment where you want to linger, but you know any sentiment or emotion will only make the wait before surgery harder for you and the wait during surgery harder for them.  No.  You say I love you.  You give a quick hug.  You avoid eye contact as the nurse leads you away. 

I was in a hospital bed waiting for surgery to begin for what seemed like a long time.  Several people came in to see me and talk to me about what was going to happen.  My surgeon squeezed my toe and asked me if I was okay.  A nurse came to give me an IV and she smiled kindly and complimented my nail polish.  Another nurse offered warm blankets every time she walked by.  Everyone was very pleasant except for one nurse, who by all rights, probably meant to be pleasant.  I just don’t think she thought about what she was saying.  She asked me why I was there and I told her I had breast cancer.  She said, “We’ve lost so many women to that battle.”   I just stared at her and wondered if she knew how much I didn’t want to hear that as I wait for surgery.  I decided she didn’t know so I shut my eyes and waited.  Finally the anesthesiologist came.  He described how the process would work and explained they were going to put me under and that I wouldn’t remember ever leaving that room, and he was right.

The next thing I knew I was being woken up.  Anesthesia is a strange creature.  I only remember parts of the rest of the day.  I remember I was happy.  I remember there wasn’t much pain.  I remember having fun with Adam and his parents and thinking how strange it was to be having fun.  I remember the nurse was concerned about my heart rate being high.  I remember they sent me home after only two hours of observation and I was so happy to be able to heal at home.  People were freaked about that, because most people stay overnight, but I couldn’t have been more thankful.  Home is where I needed to be.

There are a lot of bandages and drains in place after a double mastectomy.  Care is very easy because you aren’t supposed to touch the bandages and the drains only need to be emptied every eight hours.  Pain medication worked well for discomfort, so the biggest factor involved is the “ick factor.”  I mean, you are leaking fluid out of a pair of holes in your body and that’s kind of crazy.

I’ve been healing very well.  Most people get the drains removed after 7-10 days.  Mine were removed on Tuesday which was only four days.  I also had the bandages removed on Tuesday which means I also saw my chest for the first time.

A lot of people have asked how I handled it when I first saw my chest.  The answer is very simple.  I cried.  I thought I would be prepared.  Before the surgery I looked at hundreds of post-operation photos so I wouldn’t be surprised, but I just don’t think anything can prepare you when it’s your own body.  I was horrified.  I was terrified.  I cried as much as chest pains would allow.

The good news is that I stopped crying, and as the shock wore off I was able to find some positive thoughts to carry me through.  I had seen so many post operation pictures that I can honestly say my scars are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.  My scars are straight, clean and have no skin puckering.  My surgeon is a very talented man who left me with what would be considered a very attractive chest in the way of post operation chests.  This is a big deal to me.

I also heard the voice of one beautiful person saying, “They cut your cancer out.  The tumor is literally removed.”  What a wonderful feeling!  What a huge step in this long and exhausting battle!  Thank you so much for these sweet words T.L.  When I see my chest now I don’t think, “They cut off my breasts.”  Instead I think, “They cut out my cancer,” and those are much more beautiful scars to carry.