Wednesday, June 20 – Oh the pain

Yesterday was surgery to fix the “hole” in my right boob.  We arrived at Torrance Outpatient Surgery Center at 9 AM as directed and checked in.  I was in the back to prep for surgery by 9:30 AM.  And Dr. Goldberg was there right before 11 AM to go over the surgery, and draw purple lines again.  Not sure why she needed to draw the lines again, she wasn’t doing any pulling in, lifting, moving anything,  She was only planning on opening up my bottom incision, debridement of the cavity inside that was not healing, then seal me back up.  Add a drain if she could not get the cavity inside to come together.  Anesthesiologist came by and ordered the scopolamine patch for me so I would not have so much nausea after.  I love the patch!  Makes coming out of anesthesia so much easier.  I was moved to the OR by 11 AM and was out within a couple of minutes.

When I woke up as I was being set up in recovery, my first words were “Damn that hurts, a LOT”.  My first conscience thought was the pain.  My boob hurt, horribly hurt.  I’ve never come out of anesthesia like this before.  Wanting to writhe in pain, wanting to cry because the pain was so deep, constant and achingly sharp.  As they administered the first ML of dilaudid, my next question was did I have a drain.  I still had not opened my eyes yet, but my recovery nurse was patient and answered my questions politely.  No drain, which relieved me as that meant she was able to close up the cavity.  In my brain I was celebrating, 3 to 4 weeks and I can start radiation, maybe sooner than that I can start swimming.

Ten minutes later, eyes open I was still in more pain than I had ever been in combining my last surgeries together.  Sandra, my recovery nurse administered another ML of dilaudid.  This brought my pain down from 7 to 6.  Marina, my real recovery nurse, came in right after the second dose of pain reliever, and Sandra checked out.  Seems Marina had Sandra cover for her in the morning so she could attend her son’s elementary school graduation.  He starts Middle School next school year.  Marina got herself situated, told the waiting room I was ready to have Hubby come back and sit with me and watched me continue to grimace in twitch in pain.  It was in my boob, below the nipple, deep, close to my chest.  It felt like I was being cut with a hot knife.  It was sharp and achy at the same time.  Marina called the doctor to ask for authorization for another dose of dilaudid, and approval to add 1000 mg of IV acetaminophen.  Once I had both of those in my system the pain was very tolerable.  I was down to a 3 on the 1 to 10 pain scale.

I am used to dozing on and off once I come out of anesthesia.  Sandra the first nurse even told me to nap; it would help me deal with the pain.  I could not nap.  I hurt too much.  By the time the pain was tolerable, I was trying to doze but just could not fall asleep.  I laid there in my inclined position trying to doze off with my eyes closed, but sleep evaded me.  It took a long time to set up my release; seems Dr. Goldberg left conflicting discharge instructions.  Marina had to wait for Dr. Goldberg to call back to clarify the instructions to be provided to me upon leaving.  Most of the instructions were the basics – watch out for infection, call for a follow up appointment, no straining the side of surgery, sleep with torso elevated and no side sleeping…  but then she left instructions to start the antibiotic, but no prescription for an antibiotic.  And I could shower today, but do not get the incision wet.  Huh?  So we had to wait for the clarification on these two items.  We finally got out of there about 4:30 PM.  This was a lot longer than I thought we would be there.

It wasn’t until we were leaving that I felt the new pain, the pain that has remained with me all night and all day today.  It is not in my breast, but below my breast.  In my torso, through the rib cage, a few inches to the right of center of my torso.  It’s a sharp, digging, deep, stabbing pain.  A pain that brings me to a doubled over halt and catches my breath.  I am sure it’s because newly regenerated nerves from the previous surgeries were cut and irritated from this most recent assault on my right breast. I cannot move my right arm without triggering this pain. We found icing it helps keep it at bay. I have found if I hold the spot where this pain originates while I move about I can keep it from advancing across my whole torso and deep into my rib. It has made sleeping, and doing any kind of movement today very interesting. If I stay on top of my Advil, it helps keep the pain down from the very worst, but it is still there if I move. After a fitful night of sleep last night, not only because I am once again forced to sleep on my back, but because of the pain caused by movement of my right arm, Hubby said I should take the Toradol. I was hoping this surgery would not cause me as much discomfort since it was going into a previous surgery site, but I believe he is right. Advil as not cutting it at night, so tonight it will be supplemented with the Toradol. I am hoping this will help me sleep better tonight.

Hubby did help me cut my hair today. We now have matching haircuts. I already feel lighter. I actually would like to take this shorter, but Hubby is worried I will not really like having hair shorter than it is now. As I noted on Monday, my hair is the least of my worries right now. I’m not ready to decide what I want to do with it, so rather than have hair I don’t know what to do with and it bothering me, I’d rather just keep it trimmed down. I have more important things to deal with, healing, getting into an exercise routine I can keep, dealing with my neuropathy, starting radiation therapy. Dealing with all my emotions that now want to come out.

When I was going through chemo there was no time to deal with the whole enormity of this situation. It wasn’t denial per say, more compartmentalization. I didn’t have the emotional strength to deal with chemo and all its effects, and all the different emotions this diagnosis and my treatments would evoke. Now that I am moving to more recovery than actively treating my cancer, I am finding all my sadness, grief, anger, frustration, hurt, and self worth coming out. There are still days when I find this all overwhelming. Like the days I fell apart and Hubby had to hold me together while all the emotions poured out my nose, eyes and mouth. My grief is not like that anymore, but I still find myself with moments of sadness and despair that I will never find a normal again. The tears softly gather in my eyes and in my heart. There is no great outpouring, but those emotions are still there. It still catches me at times. I want this to be over, to be “normal” again, and someday I know I will feel normal, but I’m not there yet.

I hand write every morning. Some of my frustrations come out in those hand written pages. My sadness, my anger, my grief. Also my hopes and dreams for my new future. My gratitude. I am so grateful for my husband. He has been my anchor through this whole journey. I am grateful for my children who have done all they could to keep normal going through this journey, understanding when I just couldn’t be me, couldn’t be present, couldn’t deal with life. Still showing up and cooking for us, or accepting all the take out we ordered for family night dinners. I am ever so thankful for my extended family, for all their emails, texts, notes, phone calls, and Facebook shout outs. They have always managed to reach out to me when the universe knew I needed the boost.

Then there are all my friends, who also have insured I know they are thinking of me and praying for me. Even now, when I am “cancer free”, even though I still have more treatment to do all we can to keep  e cancer free, all my family and friends still keep in touch, still check in every once in a while, let me know they are still there, still hoping and praying right along with me. I cannot begin to express how thankful I am to all these people who uphold me in my time of need. All this and more comes out in my “Morning Pages”. But I have really felt compelled to write about my gratitude.

I am learning to embrace my inner dialogs, those inner voices we all have, each distinct in my head with different inputs. I am learning to not fight those inner discourses, and to hear what they are really trying to say. Like my Red Ogre voice, that loud, brash, angry voice that is afraid of not being worthy of love and failure, the little child voice that is timid and just wants to be loved, and the Goddess voice that quietly reminds me I am still capable of good in this world. These inner “me” are helping to sort out all the different emotions, helping me deal with them and let them come and go as needed. Knowing I have the love and support of so many sustains me through this pilgrimage.

Life is  embracing all the emotions