Wednesday, April 11 – Birthday, Anniversary, Seroma

Yesterday was Hubby’s birthday. We normally spend our birthdays at the Happiest Place on Earth – Disneyland Parks. But this year due to my ongoing issues with neuropathy in my feet (and fingers), we have opted to not renew our Disneyland passes until we know I can go and enjoy my day and walk through the parks again. I kept asking Hubby what he wanted to do on his birthday, he finally decided on a drive down to Huntington Beach along the coast and dinner at our favorite (and dating) restaurant. We would also forgo our weekly Support Group meetings. We have not been to our restaurant since last October, before I lost my hair. The Middle Son called Hubby to wish him Happy Birthday, and when he was told where we were, he was all excited we were using the gift he and his girlfriend gave us for Christmas – a gift certificate to said restaurant. Well, no, Mom actually has forgotten all about Christmas and has no idea what we received as gifts. We have a gift certificate for our restaurant? Evidently we do, so next time we plan date night, we will use our gift certificate. I did check my desk drawer where I keep gift cards and certificates and sure enough, right under the Disney gift card is the gift certificate for our restaurant along with a gift card to our favorite movie theater…

This fun little memory game came right after another one where our friends posted pictures of them eating at a themed restaurant. It looked like so much fun and right up our alley. I told Hubby “we need to go there, look; it’s themed and perfect for us!” Hubby looked at me at said, “Um, yeah, honey, we have that on our “to try” list. We saw an expose about that restaurant on Eye on LA just a couple months ago, but you didn’t have taste buds so we have put it off…” I have no recollection of this either.

Both these lovely episodes of Kim Has No Memory brought to you courtesy of Chemo Brain. I do know we received a bottle of my favorite whiskey from the cousins on Christmas Eve, because 1 – they give us a bottle every year, and 2 – I left it on the kitchen table for MONTHS to stare me in the face. It was just put away when I cleaned up the kitchen table this past Saturday.

I know I am doing a little better on the brain thing; I am up to about 15 pages of comprehension when I read before going to sleep. The only bad thing about this is I went back to reading my travel reading books, easy to follow plots, not real taxing on the thinking part, easy to read, unless you have chemo brain. For a while there I was under 10 pages of comprehended reading before falling asleep. So there is improvement. Still not ready to try a thriller yet, or action/adventure where I really need to keep track of characters, locations, timing… yeah, not quite there yet. So easy reading murder/mystery, romance and such for now.

Today is our 23rd anniversary. We met this day 23 years ago, and this is the day we always celebrate. I was temping, and every time I was called to temp in the office where he worked, it was because he was on vacation. This was a day when two others were on vacation on the same day, so I was asked to work there on a Tuesday and come back again Friday. He was so cute, and flirted outrageously, but the kicker for me was when he sang Tom Jones songs. And here we are 23 years later, still making it work. He’s my foundation when the going gets rough. He’s made me believe in Happily Ever After. He makes me laugh. He picks me up when I am down, and obviously based on the last post, knows how to hold on, hold me up, and keep all my pieces together when I start to fall apart. And he knows the difference between me needing a “toughen up cupcake” vs. the “I can hold you until you are all done trying to fall apart”.

We started our day with a trip to Dr. Goldberg’s office for a check up on the boobs. Monday when I took my shower the steri-strip tape that runs from my right nipple down the incision to the bottom of my boob started curling up at the bottom. As instructed by a previous visit to a doctor, I cut off the curled up part and left the rest. I have noted some lightly bloody/plasma spots on my super sports bras mainly from my right breast, but they were light so I thought nothing of it. This time my breast started dripping. Ok, still have some minor drainage. No big deal. I am sure Dr. Goldberg would not have pulled the drain if the seroma was still bad. I slapped a piece of gauze over the drip area, taped it in place and went on with my day. By Monday afternoon I had a huge wet spot on my bra and my shirt. Ok, maybe I need a little bit bigger piece of gauze, not the tiny one that I used.

Tuesday I had the same issue, dripped through the gauze pad I had applied and again had a nice wet spot on the super sports bra.  Next…

While waiting to be called back into an exam room, ran into Heidi from Support Group. She has not been able to come to support group for a few months now. Husband’s work schedule was changed and they are having babysitting issues. Her hair is coming in nicely, looks so cute, about 1/2 inch or so longer than mine. She also ended her chemo one treatment shy of the planned 12 infusions due to getting really sick similar to what I experienced. She had to have a double mastectomy as well as an oophorectomy as she tested positive for BRCA1/BRCA2 gene mutation which also put her at high risk for ovarian cancer. She, like me, doesn’t like her new boobs, but I am sure for a totally different reason. She also has rib pain from the tight bands of the super sports bras. We commiserated together before I was called back and she was leaving.

I explained about all the dripping to Dr. Goldberg once I was in the exam room and she was pulling off the rest of the remaining steri-strips; told her I think I might still have a little hole under there… she at first says, no, no, it looks good! Then there is the drip, even with me lying back on the exam table. Hubby sees it sliding down my side, and points it out to Dr. Goldberg as she has turned away to look for a suture removal kit. She turns back, and Hubby points out to where another drop is quickly forming. Ok, yeah, there is a little hole there, hiding in the scar tissue that is forming. Maybe you have just a little seroma left. There was a big one created from the lumpectomy and that was why she left a drain in place after my “restructuring” surgery.

She grabbed some gauze and pushed a little bit, and more serous fluid came out. Then she’s calling for her assistant. Asks for a kidney basin. She takes the un-swabbed end of a Q-tip and pokes the hole to make it a little bigger and a little bigger yet. That I felt. Then I felt the serous fluid running down my side into the basin, and she is pushing all over my boob to drain the seroma. It was not a pleasant feeling. Most of the surface of my breasts is still numb, nerves have not regenerated, but under that, closer to my chest wall, there are still functioning nerves and having a boob seroma drained was not a fun experience. She then packed the cavity in my boob with 1/4″ strip “packing tape”. She showed Hubby how to do this so he can change the dressing and stuff my boob with packing tape. She taped an absorbent pad over the hole with an end of the packing tape sticking out. She said it will be OK to keep packing it with the packing tape daily until it stops accumulating fluid. If she had known my body was going to continue to produce so much fluid she would have left the drain in place.  She also suggested I use feminine hygiene pads as they are cheaper than buying sterile dressing pads at the medical supply store. I asked her if Poise pads would be good; I always have those on hand. She laughed and said perfect, they are even better at absorbing fluid than the sanitary pads.

We talked about how my right boob is smaller than my left. She tried to keep it bigger than my left breast as it will shrink from the radiation, but she only had so much breast tissue left to work with, and my left breast is still swollen.  I have not seen my right boob since she drained the seroma and stuffed about 16″ inches of “packing tape” into it, but I am sure it is even smaller now as a good 60 cc’s of fluid (or more) was pushed out. She said her job was to reshape my right breast and bring the left breast as close as possible without jeopardizing my nipple/areola to necrosis. She said she really could not make my left breast any smaller without increasing my chance of losing the nipple and areola. She reminded us they are “sisters” not “twins”. But she also said after radiation, if the size discrepancy is very noticeable, she can do a fat graft, and she said that doing the fat graft would actually help make my skin look better than just leaving it alone, as radiation will change the texture of my skin. So we shall see…. And Hubby now has to play nurse and unpack and pack my boob until I no longer have any fluid collecting in there.

We had to order the “packing tape” at the medical supply store, they don’t carry it in stock, but it should be in first thing in the morning. I have my next follow up with my Oncologist tomorrow morning, so timing would be good.

We decided to walk up to a new take out place in the same strip mall as Starbucks to get lunch today. It’s a quick Sushi/Poke bowl place. Neighbor across the street was out washing one of his cars so of course we had to stop and chat a bit. Came out in the conversation that we celebrated Hubby’s birthday yesterday and we’re celebrating our anniversary today. Neighbor was quick to say he needed to get Hubby’s birthday written down so they have it for future reference. Hubby told him no big deal, and M was quick to say “No, I’m gay; we have a guilt complex about this!” We all laughed as this is something another friend of ours would say, also gay, and his name also starts with an M. Hubby and I continued on our walk and arrived at the Poke place. As we were getting ready to order our food, same neighbor texted us asking if he was remembering correctly that today is our anniversary, and if so, they would like to take us to brunch on Sunday. And we cannot say no to Gay Men, it’s a thing! We laughed so hard. It felt good to laugh. Still hurts a bit, but felt good. We agreed we would love to have brunch with them on Sunday. So we have a date.

I ordered a custom Poke Bowl and Hubby had Beef Teriyaki Bowl and a Spicy Tuna Roll.  The roll came with pickled ginger.  After I at all my lunch I grabbed a piece of the ginger as Hubby never eats the ginger, or very little of it.  It was really tasty and I told him about it.  He took a piece and ate it, with a thoughtful look on his face.  “Yes, this Ginger is tasty, but still prefer Maryann…”  Made me laugh.  Still hurts a bit, but again, so nice to laugh again.

After we ate at the new Poke Bowl place, walked over to Starbucks to get me an iced Latte. One of my favorite Barista’s was working and was so excited to see me. Told her about my taste buds and after my last time in last year they pretty much stopped working and HATED all dairy, tasted absolutely horrible. Now that dairy tastes normal again, I am using Starbucks as my reward for walking up the hill. She loved my hair and even rubbed it. She agrees, baby soft!

This morning I also received an email from SDI (State Disability Insurance), stating I have until April 27 for my medical provider to respond to my continued need for disability. No problem, we are heading to the Oncologists office tomorrow, I can speak to the Patient Advocate while we’re there and review who has to continue my disability paperwork since I still have radiation to go and I have not been released back to work yet. Then in today’s mail I receive a written notice that SDI has paid the last three days that have been authorized and SDI is no longer paying me. What? Wait, I thought I had until 4/27 to get this worked out… WTF?

Will start with my Oncologists office tomorrow. If they are not willing to continue providing the back up for my SDI, because radiation will be handed off to a Radiation Oncologist, then I will go to my Primary Care Physician to take this over until I am done. What a pain in the arse. I want to go back to work, I miss it, go figure, but I would so F things up right now. My brain is in no condition to take on what I was handling before, and I don’t even feel safe driving myself yet. Then there is still radiation which is going to make me so tired. I only know one person so far, in all the people I’ve talked with, who worked through chemo and radiation. She worked almost full time through chemo, but when it came to radiation, she had to cut back to part time, she could not keep it up, she was too tired. We call her Wonder Woman in our Support Group. If A had to cut back to less than 20 hours per week while she was going through radiation, there is no way in hell I will be able to work during radiation.

Life is dealing with red tape (and packing tape)