#9 November 15-22

Home is great, but dogs are better.

So I get home from the hospital, the dogs are really glad to see me, and the first thing I have to do is construct a boob barricade as Sydney, the five month old, seems to take one leap from the floor and land right on my left breast. Every. Single. Time.

I find that the shredded memory foam pillows we have in the guest room work really well for this.  I lay one on my chest, and even if the puppy stands on it, I can’t feel any pain. I just have to remember to build my barricade every time I sit down. I was thinking of flying a red flag from the top, but decided it was too much.

The older dog Scout wants to lie on my lap, but because of the boob barricade, she doesn’t have as much room as before, so she stands on my thighs while trying to decide what to do or worse, right on my kneecap! I keep straightening her legs saying, “Down, Down!” til she finally drops. Then she’ll hear something, jump off to investigate, return to my lap, and it’s deja vue all over again.

In spite of all of that, I love having my dogs around me. They are a calming force, soft, warm, full of love, and always good for a laugh.

Left side vs right side

My breast surgeon told me not to lift or really use my left arm, just some slow gentle stretches a couple of times a day.  That is much easier to type than to do. Left and right are used to working in tandem. Right reaches out for something, left starts to help. Right yells to left, “No man, you lost the toss; I’m the receiver.” Left drops in abject humiliation.

On the day after I returned from the hospital, I began to have a strange, heavy feeling in my left bicep, pins and needles etc. I get concerned, phone the Doc On Call and get reassured that this is normal. Are you kidding? Nothing going on with my body right now is normal. Now I have to deal with feeling that the whole inside of my upper arm is dead. On a positive note, the stress of waiting for the DOC helped my stool softener do its assigned work, and I’m now functioning on all cylinders.

The other left v. right problem is sleeping. I am a stomach and side sleeper. In my present predicament,  stomach is definitely out, and right is the only side. I remember sleeping in the recliner after my knee replacement, so I decide to try that again. I’m so tired, that going to sleep is not a problem, but waking about every two hours is. Still peeing in Technicolor although it’s getting lighter.   ♬ “It’s not easy peeing green.”

After the last potty trip, I try a different recliner. Yes, we have three recliners in our living room. Two are on the sofa, and are electric left over from my knees’ inability to push a recliner down. The other one is manual, but softer, so I move there for part of the night. I try soft recliner the second night, but by then my back is out of whack. I’m also having muscle pains from the medication they give you in surgery. I feel like I’ve been beaten with chains.

Third night, I go back to my own bed which normally is very comfortable. I manage to get myself into a position that feels good, turn on my Kindle (I usually read before I go to sleep,) but realize that I can’t turn over and put my Kindle to the night table without destroying my body position. No reading tonight.

I drift off to sleep. My left hip wakes me loudly screaming, “Hello, can we have some variety in positions here?” Nope, not going to happen. Can’t sleep on my back in the bed; therefore, right it is.

Because of only being able to use my right arm, it is very difficult to do normal everyday things such as putting on deodorant. What also doesn’t help is that my entire underarm is numb, so I can’t feel where it is put. I was told to get a roll-on or spray since a stick would pull too much. The spray reminds why I quit using spray eons ago. I have to get my husband to roll-on the deodorant for me. This is very humbling.

I also have this drain hanging down with yucky lymph fluid etc. dripping into it 24/7.  The drain must be emptied and measured, every so often, and I really would find it very difficult to do it myself since, I’m not supposed to use my left arm. Enter my wonderful and supportive husband. He faithfully “milks” the tube into the globe, dumps, measures, and I record the measurement for my doctor.

It’s not just with the drain that he helps. When you can’t really move one arm, there are a myriad number of things that are very difficult to accomplish.  Such as pulling up my pants. Covering myself with a blanket.  Putting on a shirt, even a button up one.

Now, let’s talk about taking a shower. I would venture a guess that most husbands and wives have, at some time in their marriage, showered together. It is sexy and romantic. What is neither sexy nor romantic is the kind of shower we have to take now.

In order to take a shower, my devoted husband must cover my drain with a special plastic bandage, so it won’t get wet. Then he helps me undress. Luckily we already had a shower chair and grab bars in our bathroom. I sit in the bath chair, and he sprays my hair and washes it for me. The running of the warm water down my back is wonderful. I want to sit all day in that relaxing feel. He washes my arms and back, and I can feel his love, at the same time I feel my inabilities.  As he was helping me once, I said, “I guess this is the ‘in sickness’ part.”

We have been married almost 47 years. I am no longer the 19 year old with the taut stomach and perky breasts. I am wrinkled and saggy, and right now, covered with steri-strips and bruises. He touches me with the same love he did 47 years ago.

Maybe I’m wrong about the romantic – but definitely not sexy.

Out, Out, Damn Spot

My surgeon told me she would probably have my pathology report the Thursday after my Friday surgery. I know they have their team meeting on Thursday, so figure I’ll get a call sometime in the afternoon. I make sure that my phone is with me at all times during the day. At supper, after not having heard anything, I say to my husband, “I guess they didn’t get the pathology report back. Maybe tomorrow.”

But I want that pathology report back, and I want it now! I need to know if I’m going to have to return to surgery because the margins weren’t clear. I want to know if more nodes than the one I already know about are full of nasty cancer. I want to know if there are any surprises.

It’s time to empty my drain. My husband handles the disgusting stuff with aplomb. I return to the living room, and pick up my phone. I hadn’t taken it with me, but I also had not heard it ring. But of course, the surgeon had called and left a voice mail. I message her back asking her to please call back as soon she can, and a very short time later, she does.

“It’s not all bad,” she begins, and my heart begins to race. OK, what’s the bad part?

 “You no longer have any cancer in your breast. The mass was about 2 cm. The margins were clear. ” Wonderful, I think, what’s the bad part?

“I took out 27 lymph nodes, and three were positive.” Hey, 3 out of 27 is pretty good odds. What’s the bad part?

“We discussed you in the team meeting today, and the oncologists want to meet with you before they set a regimen for chemotherapy.” She then begins to talk about possible regimens using abbreviations for the chemo drugs.  I only understand about half. What’s the bad part?

It turns out there really is no bad part, at least not one I didn’t already know about. I knew before surgery that I was going to have to have chemo. Maybe she forgot that we already knew I had a positive node. Many women do not discover this until surgery, so chemo can be a big shock.

She also said the radiologists want to use a newer therapy on me called

3-D Surface Imaging to Facilitate Deep-Inspiration Breath-Hold (DIBH): Patients receiving radiation for left-sided breast tumors while in the supine position (lying chest up) are at greater risk for radiation exposure to the heart. Women can minimize this risk by breathing deeply and briefly holding their breath during treatment, which moves the heart and lungs away from breast tissue. To make DIBH easier for the patient, our experts use a state-of-the-art system that relies on 3-D surface imaging to detect the breast's position for accurate treatment. This highly sensitive technology delivers radiation only during optimal positioning, and shuts off automatically when the patient coughs or exhales.  

This is why I am so happy about using the University of Chicago for my breast cancer. They have stuff like this.

So this has been my week. Learning to protect myself from loving dogs, learning to live without my left arm, learning to lean upon my husband.

Tomorrow is my post-op appointment, and I get some idea of the next level of torture – 

Chemotherapy!