Post-Mastectomy: The Good, The Bad, And The Lumpy

Surgery was a smashing success, then.

Were I more mobile, I'd be all:

In sum:

• They took out the cancer. (off to a good start!)

• Plastic surgeon was able to go straight to implants, bypassing the expander stage. Meaning: one less surgery down the road (double woot!)

• According to my surgeons, things look beautiful. According to me, things look...a touch macabre? It's funny (and ok, awkward) how they admire their handiwork. "I have to say, I mean wow. Things look beautiful." Um, thank you? I never know how I'm supposed to respond to this. "Thank you" sounds like I'm taking credit for something that's not intrinsically my own. Plus, you know, it's just ew. So I just nod and say "I'm happy with them." (I am.)

• Today marks nine days post-mastectomy. Oxycodones ingested: 0. I'd like to credit this to my superwoman level of pain tolerance. But truly, I just want to poop. 🙈

I'd like to say surgery was a piece of cake and that I feel terrific. But I think I'd be doing breast cancer patients a disservice by sugarcoating things. That operation hurt! Level 10. Partly, this is because the implants had to go behind my chest muscles (to minimize damage from radiation) and I underwent axillary dissection (armpit lymph node removal).

Even so, I only spent one night in the hospital. Probably could've used another day of intravenous Dilaudid. But mainly, I wanted to go home. Discomfort was kind of irrelevant when it came to that goal. 

The drains though. I know I sound like every basic breast cancer patient who ever lived when I say this, but: They. Are. The. Wooooorst.

For those unfamiliar with the mastectomy process—when you wake up after surgery, you'll have some new stuff going on:

 1. Pain,
 2. Pain, and
 3. Drains—a duo (or, in my case, a trio) of thin tubes hanging about your body like red tentacles, each emptying a bloody mixture into a plastic grenade safety-pinned to your surgical bra. But who cares. No big deal. You just had cancer removed!

I know, I know. How can I possibly complain about something that is ultimately assisting my body in its arduous job of healing itself? It's just—I look like a lumpy bag lady. Also, I haven't showered in 9+ days, so I'm smelling something like one, too.

Honestly, I'm flabbergasted by these plastic bulbs hanging about my mid-section. I cannot for the life of me imagine any outfit configuration that could satisfactorily camouflage them. I'm quite resigned to the lumpy bag lady look. But I am not happy about it.

All things considered, I'm doing pretty well in terms of recovery. True, I can't see myself in anything other than sweatpants, doing an activity any more taxing than lounging poolside with an iced tea and at least 600 pillows. But then, there are times in life that call for a good break from all the doing. This is one of them. It is good to just be.

How is my heroic counterpart coping? He might tell things differently, so I'll give you the truth: he is as wonderful a caregiver as he is a patient. When I was too weak to open my pill bottles, he was there to make sure I had all the muscle relaxers I needed. When I struggled to hoist myself into bed, he was there to boost me up, rearranging pillows until I was comfortable.

Now that we've both been on each side of the patient/caregiver equation, I can say without reservation: we make a pretty neat team. There may be little symmetry in life. It's sloppy and uneven and unfair. 

But there are those odd few moments of total cohesion where things just fit. And when they do, you are unspeakably grateful for your other half. Because where would we be without the one person who's willing to empty our bloody surgical drains? (It was my sister, actually. But you get the idea.)

xoxo