what a journey so far! and of course i made it back, more or less in one piece. i had wonderful doctors and nurses to take care of me. a lot of my family was there to see me off, to my adventures in the operating room. and my daughter and her family came yesterday afternoon. i think that i have done pretty well. my plastic surgeon said that i was a "trooper", and let me go home early. the average stay for this is three days. i made it home in a day and a night.
as the saying goes," the kindness of strangers", always overwhelms me. the anesthesiologist talked to me as i was getting ready to go into the operating room. i told him that i got really sick from anesthesia( when i had my thyroid cancer surgery, i got sick four times. not good when you have an incision in your neck!). anyway, the anesthesiologist told me that he would pull out all the stops for me, and he did. a patch behind my ear( kept me from seeing double), a long acting drug- called emend for nausea, and zofran given iv while i was on the table. of course, me being me, i still got sick once after surgery, but i will take it. it was much better than last time. i got a small dose of phenergan after i got sick. so you might say that i had a smorgasbord of all of the anti- nausea drugs, and it took every single one of them! the anesthesiologist told me that his wife had had a bilateral mastectomy. he was extra sympathetic, i think because of this. i told him that i was sorry to hear that. he looked to be in his 40s, so i assumed that his wife was the same age.
i am certainly over the child bearing years. to me, that is the saddest part of losing my breasts. i fed my babies until they were 11 months, and 13 months of age. it was hard to do at first, but i persevered( or i was stubborn, you choose) and it paid off. good nutrition for them, and it was special time for just us. i also think that it establishes a bond between mother and child that can never be broken. i am so glad that i had the opportunity to do this for us. but it does make me more than a little sad to lose my breasts to breast cancer. on the positive side, i have good memories, and i will continue to do what i gotta do to be around for my family.
as gandalf reminds bilbo, " when you return, you will never be the same". and that is very true of any unexpected journey. some bad ( well, awful) things happened to me , and some very good things came out of this as well . i always have loved and appreciated my family, but i do so even more now. i have had my faith strengthened, and i continue to work on a positive attitude. i am examining the next steps in my life. what do i want to do now? i still do not have all of the answers, but i am getting there.
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