I went to my breast cancer support group last night. These are lovely ladies who have all faced breast cancer and survived. Their stories aren’t mine to share, but I will say that after listening to some of their stories, I am so thankful that my journey was as smooth as could be expected.
My stock answer over the last eight weeks when someone asks how I’m doing is, “I’m doing very well, thank you.”
It’s a true statement, and sometimes when I realize how much worse my journey could have been, I almost feel a little guilty. A variant of survivor’s guilt I suppose. Why do other people have such terrible struggles and I pretty much just sailed through the whole process without a hitch? I don’t know. Yet. But God had a reason for it, I’m quite certain of that!
My road to recovery was paved with quite a few laughs. I’ve said all along it’s laugh or cry, and you might as well laugh about what you can. Crying gets you nowhere.
Like when the plastic surgeon came into my hospital room for rounds the day after surgery and informed me that I had “very nice cleavage.” Trust me when I tell you...that is the first time THOSE words had been uttered to or about me! But...yay!
Part of my surgery was the placement of the tissue expanders. These are basically rigid plastic air balloons. Once those are placed, they strap on this torture device called a breast binder. It’s a girdle for boobs. I’m not sure what the logic is for putting major compression on balloons (wouldn’t they pop or deflate??) but no one asked me.
Under the binder were surgical dressings--one for each boob--and a foam shaper thing for each boob. When it was time for me to take the first shower postoperatively, all of that had to come off and put back on again.
I’m here to tell you that the foam shapers and the surgical dressings were no problem to get in place again, but to get that binder on was like trying to put an angry cat in a burlap sack. It was pretty much a lesson in futility. Poor Captain...I’m sure that wasn’t what he thought he’d signed up for when he agreed to nurse duties!
Luckily I was able to ditch the dressings, shapers, and binder within a week. That just left me with a drainage tube on each side. At the point where the tubes exited my torso, there was a small padded and medicated foam disk in place to protect the incision opening from infection. Over all of that was a rectangular TegaDerm dressing.
Turns out I am allergic to whatever is in that medicated foam disk, and I developed painful blisters underneath of them that have left scars. Amazingly, that allergic reaction was the worst part of the recovery process.
Once the drains were removed, recovery was quick. I still had to take a nap every day which was a foreign concept to me. I have just never been a napper because I always feel crappier after the nap than before. After surgery, however, my body gave me no choice, and I would just nod off in my recliner about 2:00 every afternoon.
By four weeks postoperatively, I was feeling almost back to normal, and as I look at returning to work next week at the 8-week mark, I can say with 100% confidence that I have fully recovered from the surgery.
This means that all lifting restrictions are over and I am back to being in charge of Calf Country. On a brighter note, I can also now pick Cubby up and hug her like I used to! My PA-C tells me I can try to bowl next week, so we’ll see how that goes.
I couldn’t get the implant exchange surgery scheduled until late January at which point I will have six weeks of restrictions again. This actually works out well due to Captain’s impending hip replacement surgery in December. This way, one of us will be hale and hearty when the other is down and out. I guess that’s what that whole “in sickness and in health” thing was about in our wedding vows.
I am so very thankful for the smooth recovery process I had and for all of the love and support my family and I were shown in the last two months.
For everyone out there who is on a survivor’s journey...my prayers are with you every day that you too can or will be able to say, “I’m doing very well, thank you!”
Images used:
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