Two
weeks have passed since my mastectomy and I am doing rather well. I owe a large part of this to my aunts,
friends, and family who came to sit and take care of me for the first week
after surgery. One aunt needs particular
thanking as she actually moved in to take care of me even though the morphine
frequently made me rather ill. I only
took it for a week and decided that the pain was easier to deal with than the
whole being ill part (at least I get to keep my figure?). I am much happier these days and far more
lucid (yay for being able to remember things!). I also want to thank all of the lovely
people who sent me flowers and cards. I
love waking up surrounded by flowers and encouraging words. Thank you.
Mastectomy
is a scary concept, but to be honest it is not nearly as bad as I thought it
was going to be. Sure, I now have a
large numb section under my arm that I have been assured will shrink down to
just my armpit (so yay for numb armpits!) and a permanently damaged and rather
painful nerve that again, I have been told will heal but never be completely
normal (at least the shooting pains down my arm will stop!), but other than
that and the fact that it is very difficult to lift my arm above my head it is
not that bad. On the bright side surgery
was a complete success. They ended up
leaving almost all of the skin on my breast (deep sigh of relief because that’s
oddly enough not numb and very normal) and except for the GIANT scar across my
breast and the missing areolar complex and everything that was once inside that
skin, my breast is sort of still there.
Even my two little moles! Hopefully
when all is said and done I will feel sexy again and maybe, just maybe, have a
little of that thing called sex appeal.
I guess
success is a relative term depending on your perspective; loss of a beautiful
breast versus the complete removal of cancer.
As far as I am concerned success means that the cancer is gone. The incredibly sweet and nationally renowned
breast specialist removed the tumor (Sven was a whopping 4.5 centimeters) and
all the tissue around it, also known as “margins” in the medical world as well
as seven of my lymph nodes. The margins
all came back as negative meaning no cancer.
The lymph nodes, which are way more painful to have removed (literally
nerve wracking), technically all came back as negative too. I use the term “technically” because one out
of the seven did have some isolated, but non-metastasizing, single cancer
cells. In other words the cancer had
started to spread to one lymph node (if you will recall Minerva from an earlier
post), but my doctor guesses that the Adriamycin Cytoxan chemotherapy cocktail
that they gave me for my first eight rounds of chemo did its job and stopped
the party. These single cancer cells still
count as negative which is freaking awesome and damn lucky. My doctor was also relieved. He told me that this improves my prognosis significantly
and lessons the chance of recurrence, which hopefully will not happen. I will do my best from now on to keep it from
happening[i]. His assistant also came out and gave me a
hug, which was touching. Especially
after not being sure what would happen if they were unable to get all of the
cancer and it had spread. If it had
spread I would probably be panicking as I only responded to the one chemo
cocktail and you can only be on that one for so long before it causes other
problems such as heart and kidney failure.
However, we don’t need to think about that because the surgery was
successful.
In
addition to the mastectomy I also had reconstructive surgery. That’s right, three different surgical
procedures in one day. I think I deserve some sort of prize. Oh , wait, I get to live, never mind. I could tell you
that it was all a piece of cake, but reconstructive surgery hurts and morphine
and I do not get along. On the one hand
I did not have to wake up completely without my breast because they were able
to save more skin and therefore the plastic surgeon was able to pump up my tissue
expander a bit (one A-sized breast and one C-sized). Potentially this is far less scarring than
waking up with absolutely no breast.
On the
other hand, reconstruction really hurts. Imagine have a large almost flat object like a
small, oval plate placed under your pectoralis major muscle while wearing a bra
with the most uncomfortable underwire in the world. Then imagine that large, hard object rubbing
around against your ribs like a bad attempt at playing a washboard. However, it gets much better and that feeling
goes away. A tissue expander is essentially a large
balloon that starts out flat (note the plate analogy above). The plastic surgeon gets to fill it up with
saline solution every couple of weeks and the flat bottom curves to shape
around your ribs. I had this done on
Tuesday and it helped the washboard feeling immensely. It’s much better when things contour to your
body than work against it. However, the
washboard feeling was quickly replaced by a very full feeling. The balloon pushes forcefully up against my
pectoral muscle in order to expand it. It
also presses against my ribcage and lung, making it very hard to breathe. Do you know what happens when you try not to
breathe or try to take short, shallow breaths?
You yawn. I never thought that
yawning could be painful. This feeling
eventually goes away because your body forces you to breathe and therefore,
stretch your muscle. Except for a very
tight I-just-spent-too-much-time-at-the-bench-press- feeling, everything is
okay. That, I have been assured, also
goes away in just a few days or so. So
now my mission is to be able to lift my very sore arm above my head and return
to my yoga like ability to grasp my hands in the center of my back or put on a
hoodie. I’ll settle for whichever comes
first. I also need to make it through a couple
more bumps of saline and a summer of radiation therapy. In another year or so I get to complete my
reconstruction with brand new breasts!
Which, I have to wait a year for because they want the skin on my right
breast to heal and recover as much as possible.
So one year of balloon boob is not so bad. There is definitely a light at the end of the
tunnel.
Although
I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I still feel uncomfortable. Technically I am still a cancer patient and
have about two months of treatment and two or three more surgeries left. However, I also
no longer have metastasizing cancer inside of me. It feels so strange. I do not
feel cancer free. I’m not sure if I ever
really will. I am currently still in chemo-induced menopause
and therefore an infertile twenty-three year old and might be infertile forever. They also do not want me to have kids for at
least five more years. However, most
women in my age group are able to have children within two-to-three years after
treatment. Not that I want to have
kids any time in the near future, but I would like to have the
option. Also, for the next year or so I
am still undergoing treatment and waiting to be operated on and for the next five
years I will be taking pills to suppress my hormones. I will also have to have blood tests and
checks for tumors by my doctors for the rest of my life. To say “I don’t have cancer anymore” just
feels wrong. So technically, I do not
have cancer, but I am a cancer patient.
I am in remission and I am recovering.
My hair is growing back (I look like a fledgling bird) and my breast is in
the process of reconstruction. The
surgery was successful and at the moment I am okay and desperately hoping that
I will stay that way.
[i]
For further information on how to prevent cancer through personal habits please
read Anticancer, A New Way of Life by
David Servan-Schreiber MD PhD. It is a
fast read, I promise.
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