Thursday, February 26, 2009

Now What???

After my mastectomy I looked forward to the healing and pain free days. I feel like I'm becoming the biggest whiner, but danged if I don't have something else to cry about now.



Today is exactly two weeks since I had surgery. The major pain from surgery is gone, but now what I have is something that I don't know if I can properly describe. I don't feel like I have to go into detail to explain the pain I felt when I had my breasts removed. Everyone probably has a pretty good understanding that that hurt. One thing, though, they warned me all my nerves would be cut and I wouldn't have surface feeling anymore. I've had no feeling on my skin area at all - I mean dead numb - or it was. I am now developing a feeling in parts of that area that make me want to rip my skin off.

There are areas of skin on my chest that are hyper-sensitive. I want nothing touching, feeling, looking, existing near or thinking about that area. I can't find a shirt soft enough to wear. Everything that brushes up against my chest makes me want to jump through the roof. None of the kids' friends are allowed to come inside anymore cause Mommy refuses to wear a shirt most of the time. When I do have one on, I have it pulled away from my chest.

The other night I was sitting on the couch watching TV and sensed Jacob was staring. Finally, he asked why it was that I had my shirt pulled forward in front of me and I was looking down it. I explain that I wasn't really looking down it, I was blowing softly on my skin under my shirt. He asked if that made it feel better. I told him no. So, of course, he wanted to know why I was doing it. I thought long and hard and finally decided I would answer his question with a question - one that only his 7 year old mind would understand: I asked if his homework was done; surely he had better things to do than stand there bothering me with complicated questions.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Good News and Bad News

The good news is I got my drains removed yesterday! Yayyyyyy!



The bad news is it wasn't time for them to be removed. All further draining will have to be done with the giant cartoon like needle.



Yesterday my right drain tube got loose where it was attached to my side. Every time I moved my arm I could hear it sucking in air. I've not ever been to medical school, but something told me this was not a good thing. The funny part to all this was that my mom left Saturday with great concern about leaving me alone to fend for myself during the day. She was afraid something would happen and I'd have no one to take me to the doctor. Oh pshaw, mom, you're such a worrier.



As it happens I was indeed alone when my mishap happened. It ended up not being that giant big of a deal, but it was scary for a moment. In my little panicky mind, I envisioned my right chest side slowly filling up with air like a balloon. It doesn't actually work that way.


Anyway! As you all have noticed, I'm no longer writing in my blog everyday anymore. There just isn't anything to report on the cancer front. I do go to the surgeon on Friday and to my oncologist Tuesday. As soon as the surgeon decides I'm healed and good to go, I will be released to the oncologist for chemotherapy.

I promise to keep all update coming your way. For now there will not be daily posts, well... because there just isn't anything to post. And I mean anything. I'm home alone all day doing nothing. Nothingggggggggggg!

As always, thanks for your prayers.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

All Clogged Up

The only thing worse than my drain tube being clogged up again (still?) is having to hear Tom say I told you so.

Ok, he's not really used the words "I told you so" - more along the lines of sarcastic comments on how he sure is glad he didn't tell me to go to the doctor on Friday to get that drain checked before the weekend. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Tom was right. What a hero.

So my right drain tube is still clogged. I guess that makes sense since she didn't fix the darn thing. All she was finally able to do was manually drain my right side. It's all full and swollen again. Full and swollen equal pain. Pain equals crabby me. I'm crabby and Tom's using sarcasm. I just don't see how this is going to end well.