Surgery Day Two

At 2:00 am I was done with surgery number two.  I spent the night at the hospital.  Hans stayed over and slept in the chair.  The staff was very good to me.  Very attentive.  I had a nice room.  The food wasn't very good.  It also didn't agree with Hans' stomach.  For breakfast I had French Toast and Hash Browns.  For Dinner I had fish and pilaf.  It was ok, but kind of dry.

I would sleep only a bit at a time.  My poor husband couldn't get any sleep.  The IV was in my inner arm at the bend.  So if I would move it the wrong way the machine would beep.  We waited all day for Dr. Bowling.  She finally got there at about 3 or 4pm.  She had Clinic all day.  I did get visits  from all kinds of staff that ranged from volunteers to the ones in charge of the staff.  I had all good to say.

Hans was getting edgy because of lack of sleep.  Poor guy.  So he finally decided to go home.  Adrian happened to come for a visit just at that moment.  He had a couple of friends to visit there as well.  Perfect timing.  Just after Hans left , Dr. Bowling and Cindy got there.  The nurse was going to move my IV so we could maybe stop the constant beeping.  Well, Dr. Bowling let me go home.  YAY!   I was afraid Hans would be mad if someone else drove me home from the hospital.  But he was so tired he said YES to Adrian taking me home.  So unlike him.  He loves being my caretaker I guess.

I have to tell you, I was scared to go home.  After the ordeal last night, I wanted a safety net.  But Dr. Bowling assured me I would be fine.  They told me what went on and having to remove so much stuff out of my left breast  and that she would know more when I come in for the check up. 

I got dressed and headed home with my son.  He was just worried about me being able to get up in his work truck.  I told him he'd have to pick me up. HA HA.  I managed with holding on to the "Oh Shit" bar and pulling myself up with a push in the back.  

Finally home.  My own bed was calling me.  I didn't dare wake up Hans.  We both slept the night.

Surgery Day

Got up very early the day of surgery.  I need to be there by 7:00 am.  First thing I needed to do was go to get another Mammogram and get a wire put in that would be a guide for the doctor.  Adrian was there for Hans.  Daryl was going to be, but he got a call to go in for Overtime.  I told him to go.


Surgery went well. Hans and Adrian were there when I woke up.  By 3:30 pm I was getting ready to go home. Adrian had just left when they let me go.  Hans was relieved that we could go home together. The details are still fuzzy to me. 

Here's what was done:

7:00 am check-in-smooth.

9:30 am Stint put in-This helps the doctor to be able to go in to the right place to do the surgery.  A dye is also injected to lead to the lymph nodes to take out.

10:30 am Surgery (actually 11 am.  There was some mix up on the order of Meds).

All was well, we were on the way home.  Hans made the calls, sent the text to people on the list.  He hung up on the last call and then my son Daryl called.  He had car problems.  I told him I'd be all right and he should go help him.  I tried to sleep a bit.  My left breast started hurting a bit before he left.  I knew he'd be back as soon as possible.  Hans managed to talk Triple A into letting him leave the card with my son and being able to get back to me.  By the time he got home, I couldn't stand the pain any longer.  My left breast got bigger and bigger while the right one, that had the cancer deflated.  The cold and hot treatment did not work out so well.  By the time Hans got back he'd already called Dr. Bowling and she had called him back.  If it got worse, I was to come in to ER.  Well, it got worse.  I looked like I had a bad boob job.  I got dressed again and we headed back to the hospital.

I guess I was very dehydrated.  I had major cotton mouth.  The only thing I had eaten was chicken soup when I got home.  I was not very hungry.  The soup was light and water was the only thing I had ingested.  This was good, because I was about to go back into surgery.  In the ER, the nurse wanted me to get on the scale.  No way I told her.  I was not moving out of that wheel chair.  I gave her the weight from earlier.  She took it.  I kept asking for something to clean my mouth out with.  No one would give it to me.  For crying out loud, I knew I couldn't suck the water out because of the surgery.  But a wet rag would have been nice.  So when the room nurse left, I begged Hans to give me some wet paper towel.  That was all I needed.  He threw it away before the nurse came back in.  I still wasn't given anything for pain for a while. The attending doctor finally got a hold of the Dr. Bowling and she gave them the instructions to keep me comfortable.  She was 10 minutes away.

Finally! IV for the pain medications. We knew there would be a bit of swelling to deal with after the surgery.  But this was ridiculous.  It went way beyond a little bit of swelling.  My left breast that had the suspicious mass removed was like the size of an M cup.  My right one that we thought would have problems was like that of a C cup.  This was normally a D cup the last few years.   When Dr. Bowling got there, pain meds were ordered and pain was masked.  What a relief.  My poor husband was so tired by this point.  I felt bad for him.  He had been up since 4 am at least, maybe longer. 

I will have more to update.  But I have been trying to stay up long enough to be able to focus.