April 30, 2009
Laughter And Tears
This morning I had a breakthrough. After spending SO many months avoiding looking in the mirror, I finally saw myself during a dressing change. And I mean REALLY saw myself. I took in the full view of myself from the waist up that I had been avoiding for most of the last TWO YEARS!!
I have breasts. I have beautiful, new breasts. *I*, the (formerly) mangled, mutated, sub-human Thing…have BREASTS!! They’re rounded and firm and bouncey and beautiful and MOST importantly…They’re MINE!! Oh My God! I HAVE BREASTS!!!!
When it finally registered and I took it all in, I laughed and cried at the same time. For a good 10 minutes I shook with this wonderful mix of joy and relief. Tears coursed down my cheeks as I laughed with pure, raw emotion. I haven’t had this sort of visceral reaction since my children were born.
My dear, darling husband Ken brushed the tears away and laughed with me. Then he did an amazing thing. He stood behind me and cupped his hands over my pretty new breasts and pressed himself against me romantically nibbling on the nape of my neck.
For those who, Thank Goodness, have never had to endure anything like what I have gone through, I can genuinely say that this single experience has done more for making me feel whole again than any other. Even if it takes a while for nipple reconstruction I can genuinely say that I feel like myself again.
I am whole in my heart.
ow ow Ow OW OW!!
Today is the two week anniversary of my surgery. Even with the minor infection, which is being addressed with twice daily doses of Cephalexin and polysporin ointment topically, everything seems to be progressing well.
My back, where it has felt corseted for the last two weeks, is finally relaxing. The muscles aren’t having spasms like they were. They’re also not rock hard like they were last week. The main point of pain these days is the right hand drain in my back. Right now the pain level is about a 4 spiking up to as high as a 7. Hurts like a muthafucker. That site has been very sensitive from the beginning. Ken looked at it tonight and he said it looks a little red. That could be from the yanking around he’s been giving it. I’ve really come to dread having anything to do with that drain because it IS so sensative. I’ll just be glad when these last two drains are out.
Ocassionally, to make matters worse, Ken will mess up while stripping the drain. He made me cry tonight because he got distracted and started out on the wrong hand.
Here’s a helpful hint for all you people who are stipping drains for your loved ones. FOCUS. Focus 100% on what you are doing because the last thing you want is to cause the one you love the kind of pain that reduces them to tears.
The level of serous fluid in a 24 hour period is still dropping stedilly. I’m hoping by Monday the drains will be ready to come out. Right now the left side, milliliter-wise, is in the low 40s and the right is in the high 50’s-low 60’s. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens over the weekend.
Infection – Part 5
I just got an email from Dr. Elliott. Earlier today we took photos of the site and sent then. He doesn’t believe it looks bad and I agree. Just to be safe, however, he’s having me wash and dry twice daily with topical applications of polysporin ointment. As an added measure we’re adding five days of Keflex.
How cool is this? Dr. Elliott sent the prescription request to my phramacy via his iPhone. Isn’t technology a fantastic thing?
I have to admit that I WAS totally freaked out about this when it started a few days ago. Now that it’s being handled, and by Dr. Elliott himself, I feel MUCH better.
April 29, 2009
Infection – Part 4 Plus Addendum
I finally got in touch with Patti from Dr. Elliott’s office. According to her, the usual secretary, Suzanne, She Who Knows Where Everyone Is At Every Minute Of The Day, had jury duty so the replacement was relatively clueless and did NOT give Patti either of my messages. Patti, on the other hand, was in surgery all day and had no way of knowing that I was trying to get in touch with her.
When I did get to speak with her, she had some instructions for me. She still suspects that the tape irritated the skin over the sutures but doesn’t want to take chances since I’m so far away. First, she instructed me to wash off the irritated area with soap and water, then pat the area dry thoroughly. Once dried, I was to take a piece of dry gauze and put it over the area to keep it clean and dry. No ointment or anything was to be applied. She doesn’t want to encourage any wetness or “gooiness”. It’s got enough of that going on already. Then, I was to put on a top with a shelf bra to help hold the gauze in place.
I’ve got to say that in this shelf bra, my breasts look HUGE!!!
Tomorrow morning I am to check it and report in. If the area is still red, she will prescribe a low level short run antibiotic just to be sure there isn’t any little bug trying to make my life less than idyllic.
Wednesday is the day that I was supposed to remove all the tape from all the sutures and take a full shower. Since I had to wash off that area anyway, both Ken and I agreed that we might as well do all the suture tapes while I was at it. We took everything off and all the sutures are looking good.
We also took pictures of everything for when I finally get the website for BoobCast up and running. Although it has only been 12 days since the initial reconstruction surgery, I can already see places that may need to be addressed during the revision surgery.
My right breast is about 1/4 larger than the left. Both breasts still have a squared-off look to the front. Both of these issues will need to be addressed. If, of course, they don’t fix themselves in the interim. Ken is talking about waiting 6 months. Dr. Elliott is saying 2 months. I’ve been saying 3 months. So we’ll see what happens.
In the mean time, there’s still this possible infection to deal with. So, once more, I’m trying to take things one step at a time.
April 28, 2009
Infection – Part 3
This is the first time I have been disappointed with the performance of Dr. Elliot’s people. Granted, today was a surgery day, but one would think that when a patient is having a problem that may have developed into something more severe, they would have SOMEONE available to answer that patient’s questions SOME time during the business day. ESPECIALLY when that person called at 2 am the night before.
With my history of complications, you would think that even with a heavy surgery day, one of the nurses would have made an effort to get in touch with me at some point during the business day.
I called at 12:30 and again at 4:45 and talked to a human both times. The second time she said she would text my number to Patti and have her call me. If I have not heard from her by 7pm, I’ll call the 24 hour line and see if I can get an answer THAT way.
Infection – Part 2
We heard from Patti at 2 am this morning. She reassured me that what I described didn’t nessecarilly indicate infection. It is possible that the redness is caused by a sensitivity to the tape and the yellow, smelly discharge could just be my body ridding itself of old matter.
What she had me do was, remove the tape, take a shower to wash off the area, pat it dry and leave it open to the air so that it will dry out. Since it’s partially in the crease under my right breast I’m not sure how well this plan is going to work.
I’m deferring to the professionals though. I am to call the office later this afternoon and report on the results of her instructions.
I’ll report here as I have information.
Infection- Part 1
It’s 1:18 am Tuesday April 28th. That smell I thought was my armpits…isn’t.
There is a thick yellow discharge from the suture line on the underside of my right breast. And it smells awful.
The area is also red.
Classic signs of infection
The plus side? I’m not running a fever.
Right now we’re waiting for the on-call person from Doctor Elliott’s office to call back and advise us on what to do.
I’ll post updates as they occur.
Right now? I’m freaking the fuck out.
The Curse Of The Pre-Existing Condition
Northside Hospital wasted no time at all in sending their bill. It was, of course, not itemized. It was also for more than the initial estimate.
Yes, I know that “estimate” means it could be more or it could be less. Considering I was only in there for two full days I’m surprised that it turned out to be over $32,000.
Ken is going to be contacting them for an itemized bill and negotiating it down further. He’ll also be negotiating a payment plan, I’m sure because there is NO WAY we can afford to pay that kind of money all at once.
Our income is further limited because right now there’s no way I can work. I can’t pour oils from one bottle into another. I’m not steady enough. I don’t trust myself to reliably fill even 10 ml bottles. I can’t even lift hydrosol bottles because they are far too heavy. Right now I can’t even really stand upright for very long. The pain meds, especially the muscle relaxer, makes me sleepy. So I’m doing duty as two of the seven dwarfs: Sleepy and Dopey. I also don’t have the mental capability of taking orders because I can’t focus for very long. It’s unbelievable how long it takes me to do one of these posts so you can imagine what I’d be like on the phone with a customer.
Not only did the surgeon’s fee have to come out of pocket, but so do the hospital fees. I’m one of the fortunate few. Many women who are uninsured never have this kind of opportunity and are forced to live their lives feeling the way I felt just a few short weeks ago. My heart goes out to each and every one of you who continue to live without the benefit of reconstructive surgery. I may complain about the expense, but I want to acknowledge here that I know how very fortunate I am.
It is for women in this position that I support an overhaul of the insurance and medical system. When we are in the financial position to do it, we will be starting a foundation that will help to pay the medical costs of women who have gone through things similar to what I have had to endure. NO woman should have to be put in a position where she has to choose between being whole and keeping a roof over her head.
Unfortunately, insurance companies keep putting people in just that position. Cosmetic surgery snafus that cause these tragic circumstances lead insurance companies to deny claims because any new claim filed in conjunction with those complications are considered a preexisting condition. Even if you go into cosmetic surgery like I did with a clean bill of health, insurance companies will find ANY excuse at all, including old medical test results that were a little iffy to either deny the claim OR yank your coverage.
Once you’ve been denied coverage, good luck getting anything remotely resembling decent medical insurance after that. These unscrupulous practices are ruining people’s lives. All in the name of the AllMighty Profit.
In my particular instance, the insurance company dug up a urine test that had a high number of epithallial cells. These are the cells that line internal organs and are sloughed off as a regular biological process. In higher levels they CAN also indicate a pre-cancerous condition.
I do not have cancer nor was I told about this result by my doctor because there was nothing to worry about. When I told the insurance company all of this, they just reiterated their stance and continued to deny me coverage.
This sort of practice has GOT to stop.
April 26, 2009
Shower
You wouldn’t think washing your hair and body would be this exhausting. I just got done with my second shower since surgery and I’m really tired. I feel like I’ve been at Disney on an 18 hour marathon. My back is spasming to a Morse Code beat. I wonder if it is spelling out SOS?
I’ve dressed because all of my Jammies are dirty and have clambered back into bed. The longer I sit here and relax, the less fanatical the spasms get. That’s something of a relief. I was starting to feel like a telegraph station.
I may have pushed it a bit while I was up. After I dressed, I fed and watered Chela (our Umbrella Cockatoo), opened his blinds and turned on his TV, put Spray n Wash on all the stained Jammies in the laundry room, threw them into the washer and turned off the livingroom lights that had been left on over night.
It may not seem like much but it really is a lot considering up til recently my main activity has been sitting and staring or typing. Even typing wears me out a bit. Now and then I have to stop for a minute, rest and then get back to it
I actually expected the aftermath of my shower to be more demanding. The tape over the sutures stayed MUCH better than I expected it would. It helped, too, that I had Hubby to wash and dry my back. There’s no way I could have reached at this point.
Although, if you don’t have someone to help, a good way to wash your back is to pick up a long handled puffy thing at your local Wal-Mart or Bed Bath & Beyond. That will give you the extra reach since we all lack flexibility at this point.
In one of these installments soon I’ll be talking about the mental adjustment to having breasts. Believe me, when you’ve been ignoring that region of the body for 18 months, there IS an adjustment to make.
Less Pain Meds
I must admit that at this point I’m concerned about my body’s ability to heal versus my limited supply of pain medication. While I haven’t gotten to the point where I am in major pain or even seriously uncomfortable, it IS a bit unnerving knowing that there are no refills on these medications.
From the begining I have been asked to rate my pain level from 0 to 10, zero being none at all to 10 being the worse pain imaginable. 95% of the time I have rated at a 0. On rare occasions when I have mis-timed or woken in pain, I have been up as high as a 5 or 6. At that point I’ve taken a muscle relaxer and just stayed very, very still until the meds kick in.
I have to wonder how I will manage to function once those run out. I’ve been using a 1/2 a Percocet for the low level breakthrough pain up until today. All day today I managed to only take two muscle relaxers. One when I first awoke and one as a precautionary measure at bed. The rest of the day I only took two doses of 1/2 percocet each. These really seemed to do the trick when I felt my back muscles starting to really tense and spasm.
It’s still very interesting to me that my back is so much more of a pain zone than my new breasts. I understand that the proceedure was much more invasive on my back than my chest. I thought, though that all the newly transported skin, fat and muscle would put up more of a protest to the move than it is.
I MUST be healing pretty quickly though. The top drains have been gone since Thursday. That’s exactly one week after surgery. The level of serous fluid draining from my back has steadily decreased and now my need for pain medication is dropping.
My back still feels like I’m corseted, but it doesn’t feel quite as tight as it did last week. I’ve done a little research that tells me that it will be 1-2 months before all that tightness is completely alleviated. In the mean time it gives me a reason to have really good posture.
If it gets to the point that I still need pain meds, I can probably call Dr. Elliott’s office and ask for a small script. I’m just nervous about the posibility. At least I have that much of a contingency plan, should the situation call for it. I’ll just have to wait and see and hope for the best possible outcome.
