My portacath is out

My port-a-cath has been removed, finally. I'd only been using it for bloodwork four times per year at the cancer center and they were balking at doing bloodwork without chemotherapy. I decided to have it removed a few months ago but it took a little while to get the appointment made. It's an elective procedure after all, and there's no rush to do it.

I was nervous beforehand and babbled to anyone who would hear me. Apparently I babble when I'm nervous - who knew? (Ian did) The procedure was straightforward. We started with bloodwork; when it came back about an hour later, I changed into a gown and got on the table. They sanitzed the port area with whatever stuff they use, applied local anaesthetic (which burned, like it always does), and cut through the original scar.

The pulled the catheter part that went up to the neck vein out first. It hurt a bit because apparently after so long - 7 years - scar tissue forms a tube around the catheter tube. That scar tissue broke in places as it was pulled out and that caused an unpleasant tugging, painful sensation.

After the catheter was out it was time to take out the reservoir. That, too, was completely encased in scar tissue. I already knew that because when the port went in, it slid around and it's been stationary over the last few years. It took quite a bit of snipping and tugging and snipping and pulling and snipping and yanking before the thing came out.

It took about half an hour to remove the port and once it was done, I was stitched up with dissolving stitches and sent on my way. Ian took me home and has stayed with me since.

The freezing is only now starting to come out, nearly 8 hours later, and the area is starting to throb and ache. The area by my neck hurts a bit, too. I'm quite tired because being nervous takes up a lot of energy.

Home care will be coming tomorrow and again Friday or Saturday to change the dressing. I can't get the dressing wet until I'm all healed up so I'll have to wash my hair over the tub and take sponge baths.

My oncologist and the nurses all said that I would be able to travel next Monday, which is good because I'm going to Manchester to see my sister and her new son, Warwick, who was born February 8. (surprise!) That's as long as there's no infection or anything - I don't want to go to another country if I'm sick. I don't expect there to be a problem.

One very lazy day

I think I overdid it yesterday. I remember finishing my walk and my chest feeling weird, almost as though I could feel where the lymph node biopsy had been taken.

I was also feeling sleepy today so I decided to take it completely easy. Even though it was a glorious day outside, I didn't go for a walk. I miss going for a walk .... it's so wonderful outside with the sun and the breeze and the growing things. I ended up feeling a little frustrated and sad later on in the day and I wonder how much the lack of a walk had to do with that mood change.

I also didn't do any sewing today. I thought about doing some sewing but I figured that if I started sewing, I would rush to try to finish it before I go away this weekend. I know me - it's exactly the kind of thing I would do even, though I don't need to actually finish anything before the weekend. Sure, it would be nice to have the dress for the weekend but I don't need to be done then; my plan is to have this and other dresses for the summer. There's no need to stress myself out over finishing the dress. Next week (or the week after) is good enough.

This evening Ian and I did some errands. I bought myself a lovely sunhat for my walking adventures. I walk a lot these days, as you know, and I also know that I'll be outside walking in Atlantic City. No matter where I'm walking I like to wear a hat to protect my face and neck from the sun. Normally I wear sunscreen and/or a SunVeil to protect my skin from the sun. I've decided to bring the SunVeil on my trip because I don't feel comfortable applying sunscreen over the incision  site. I'll be so stylin', wearing my big straw hat and sunveil while walking down the Boardwalk. :)

Speaking of my incision site, it's healing well. There's still a huge bump under the incision but I think it's going down just a bit. The little scabby bits are coming off fairly easily, too, and the edges of the incision are mostly staying together. This is a very good sign: I scar the worst when the incision edges don't meet while healing.

I won't be able to be quite as lackadaisical tomorrow because I need to get ready for my trip and that includes doing laundry. I do hope to go for a walk (wearing my hat and sunveil) to calm myself down and keep my mood even before I leave. I'm very excited about the trip and to see the people who will be there. I may not sleep so well tomorrow night :)

Back to normal, sort of

I meant to do a blog post yesterday but when it came down to a choice between doing my blog and having a bath, I chose the bath.

I did get started on my dress today: I put together the bodice and Ian helped me fit it this evening. The advantage to fitting the bodice first is that the bodice goes to the waist and so when fitting it, I had to make sure that the waist seam stayed in the right place. If the skirt was attached it's harder to make sure that the top is right. The skirt will be fairly easy to sew and fit once I've made the changes to the bodice.

Luckily, I don't need to add anything anywhere: I need to take it in a bit to do some shaping so that it's less boxy and more under the bust, and it turns out that I added a bit too much to the bust point, so I'll take that out. Because this is a sundress with straps, less ease is needed through the bust and shoulder (which means that I also need to shorten the straps slightly).

I need to take the back in because my back is narrow and straight, and I need to adjust for the swayback that I have. I wasn't sure if I actually had a swayback or not because I've never tried to fit just the top before. My high hip is big in comparison to normal and it's possible that it was causing the swayback problem. Nope... I have an actual swayback problem in addition to my full high hip.

I'm looking forward to finishing this dress - I really like the way it's coming together and I think it's going to look great. I'm looking forward to doing this in a variety of fabrics. And I'm really excited about being able to make the right set of changes to other patterns so that I can make some other cute summer dresses.

After putting the bodice together I went for a walk. It was probably too long at about an hour and a half but it was quite relaxing. I discovered a cleared field in what I thought were just woods today which was interesting. My incision still has a huge bump under it that can be quite uncomfortable, especially if I get short of breath. And when the sweat rolls into the incision it feels like salt in a wound, you know? :)

As I get better and better I'm looking forward to going on longer walks in this and other neighbourhoods. It's so nice outside and I love being out in the fresh air just walking and thinking my thinks. I used to always take music with me but now I just listen to the sounds around me. The other advantage of going for longer walks is that I can get in better shape and possibly lose some weight.

Incision and sewing updates

I took the dressing off of the incision today. It had been on for three days and that should be long enough. I was wrong about the size of the incision: it's actually about 2 1/2" long. That's still long and it really does kind of look like an extra mouth was cut into my neck. The incision looks like it's healing just fine and the stitches are dissolving, I think. The sides of the incision are still together in most places and that bodes well for it healing into a nice-looking scar.

I think I need to cover the incision while I'm sleeping and then leave it open to the air again tomorrow. I know it's better to leave it open to the air so it heals but I woke up several times last night trying to scratch at the incision through the gauze because it had that "healing itch". I don't want to tear the incision open in my sleep and I don't know of another way to stop me from scratching at it other than covering it. I figure that as long as I leave it open to the air during the day it'll be ok.

I decided to use a different fabric for my dress because I just couldn't get the pattern to line up the way I wanted with my first choice. I ended up cutting out the pattern from this gorgeous fabric that I recently bought:

Stretch cotton large print fabric

I love this fabric! It's got a huge pattern on it with alternating solid flowers and dotted circles and I just love the bright colours against the black background. I first thought about trying to put certain parts of the pattern in certain areas (like the big, colourful flowers near the top and bottom, say) but then I said, "to heck with that" and just cut it out in the most efficient layout possible. I decided to do this because I liked the look of the fabric when I'd just hold it up and let it drop in folds and I figured the best way to get that look was to just cut it without trying to put certain features here or there.

This fabric is almost 60" wide and after cutting out my pattern I have nearly two yards of it left, so there's plenty there if I need to re-cut any pieces or if I want to make another style of dress or a skirt or something. I hope that the fabric looks as awesome made up as it does in my head :)

I also made one final change to the dress pattern. Instead of having the back skirt come straight down, I added an inch to the hem of each of the side back and center back pieces, putting the extra away from the sides of the skirt. Vintage skirt patterns have this extra fabric back there - straight skirts are straight in front and like an a-line in the back - and I find that this style is more comfortable when walking and it looks better on me. If for some reason this modification doesn't look right it's easy enough to remove. This alteration would be more noticeable on the other fabric but it won't even show on the fabric I decided to use.

We're going to look at some open houses tomorrow and I'm also hoping to at least baste the seams together to check the fit of this dress. If it fits, I'll cut out the lining and finish the dress. I hope it works!

Movie night and my incision

Tonight, Ian and some other guys got to move some furniture around at a friend's place and their reward was to watch a chick flick: Valentine's Day. It doesn't sound like much of a reward, does it? The guys didn't think so, either, but they watched the movie anyways.

We were surprised at how funny and generally good the movie was. It was actually fairly entertaining, if a little predictable. The story is about how a number of interconnected people celebrate or hate Valentine's Day. Some are happy, some not; some find love and friends, some don't; in the end, all the stories are resolved and almost everyone ends up happy. The movie is quite long at just over two hours but doesn't feel as long as it is. This, plus the fact that everyone (including the guys) laughed during the movie tells you that this is an ok movie.

If this movie happens to be on, go ahead and see it. There are much worse movies you can watch.

Before we went to the movie, I'd had a non-soaking bath and a nap. When I got up I found that the dressing covering my incision was soaked. I must have been sweating after the bath and it collected in the gauze.

We decided that leaving the wet gauze on the incision would be a bad idea so we took it off and put a new dressing on it. If there were steri-strips on the incision the dressing could have stayed off but of course those cause welts on me so it's better to keep the dressing on. Hopefully keeping the dressing on longer will mean that the scar won't be as bad as some of my other scars. This is actually a concern because this incision is HUGE!

Yes, it's huge. Ian says that it looks like they carved another mouth for me just below my collarbones, and he's right. The incision 3" long, which is wider than my mouth is (the "small mouth" comments aren't totally unfounded, you see). I'd love for this scar to fade away and be unnoticeable, especially since it's in such a visible spot. I do have exactly one surgical scar that's almost completely unnoticeable: the lumpectomy scar from 2006. I'm hoping that keeping the dressing on and then not soaking the incision in the bath until after the stitches dissolve will prevent the usual ugly scar from forming as it heals.

At least this incision gives me a built-in costume for Halloween: Frankenstein! All I'll need to do is draw a line all the way around my neck and draw in some extra stitches. Perfect!

Yesterday's events

I'm feeling ok today. The incision is quite sore, as is my throat, my neck is very stiff, I have a headache, and some of my muscles are sore too. I'm coughing up stuff, too, presumably from the bronchoscopy.

I promised I'd tell you more about yesterday, so here goes...

The surgery was scheduled for 1pm and I was asked to arrive around 10am for all the admitting stuff. We got there a few minutes early and checked in and the person set up my chart and printed a LOT of stickers with my name and details on them for use on everything. All the stickers they'd printed during pre-op couldn't be used, you see, because my patient number was different from pre-op to the recovery area.

We waited a few minutes and got taken to my bed in the recovery area so that the nurse could admit me. She said she had to put an IV in and I asked if she could possibly use my port. She said yes and called the IV techs. I was so excited - which was apparent to everyone. The thought of having them fuss with an IV would have been too much for me. I learned something from the IV tech, as well: the fluids can't just drip into the port, they have to go through a pump. Otherwise, the fluid can put too much pressure on the port.

After the IV was set up and I was changed into my lovely hospital gown, we waited and waited and waited. Eventually someone came by and said that the doctor was running early by about a half hour. This was very exciting news... but then it turned out that he got called up to help someone else and we started five minutes late.

Normally as they wheel you into the operating room, they make you take your glasses off. When the anaesthetist who was taking me found out that I couldn't distinguish faces without my glasses, he let me keep them on so that I could see everyone's faces when I met them. I really liked that; it made me feel much more comfortable. Of course it meant that I could see everything in the OR, but that was ok.

As we were waiting for the doctor to arrive, we were joking around about where I work. They had to check my mouth size for the tubes and I said that I had a kid-sized mouth. The nurse asked if my boyfriend minded (!) or if he was used to it... I had no answer. What do you say to that? Weird.

After that, the anaesthesiologist started injecting fentanyl into my IV... and I woke up in the recovery room with one of the worst headaches I've ever had. I was wearing an oxygen mask and for some reason the oxygen mask made the headache worse. The nurse put a cold cloth on my forehead and an ice compress on the back of my neck. I also started having pain in my incision and she gave my Dilaudid through the IV and Gravol in case I was nauseous. I found out later that they'd given me Zofran via IV and that this can cause migraines. I've taken Zofran by mouth before but never IV, so maybe it did give me a migraine.

I fell asleep and woke up to the XRay techs there to take my chest XRay. I wasn't expecting that but woozily complied with their requests to sit up and take a deep breath. I asked about the XRay later and was told that they do it because in some cases, the bronchoscopy can cause the lung to collapse or bleed. Fortunately, nothing was/is wrong with my lungs.

At this point my oxygen level kept dropping. It sits about 96% normally, which is a bit low but expected because of the Fentanyl patches, and they'd given me the Dilaudid, another narcotic that depresses respiration. So of course my oxygen level was low, so they put one of those oxygen nostril thingies on me and that kept it up.

When I was taken back to the regular area, Ian came to see me. They asked if I wanted something to eat or drink, which of course I did because I was starving and thirsty. They gave me a can of ginger ale, four crackers, a thing of grape jelly, and two digestive cookies. I ate and drank it all and then I fell asleep.

I woke up about three hours later, just after six, with Ian still at my side. I guess the nurse had come by to check my vital signs but Ian told them to just let me sleep. The nostril oxygen thingy was on me the whole time which helped me sleep. When I woke up, they checked my blood pressure and pulse and then got me to the bathroom. Once I did that, they called for the IV tech to disconnect the port and when that was done, I got to go. They faxed a prescription to my pharmacy for T3s - which is funny, because when they asked me what pain medications I didn't like, I said "codeine", which is the narcotic in T3s. So much for that.

Of course I had all that pink stuff on me when I came home; I guess it's some kind of sterilizing stuff. We were able to get most of that off pretty easily even though the nurse said it would be a while before that happened. I do have welts under where the heart monitor thingies were, so now I know that I'm sensitive to that adhesive, too. Sigh. I wonder if taking Benadryl before having to have these adhesives put on me would prevent these welts?

The usual instructions are to keep the dressing on for two days but the doctor told me that I should keep mine on for three days because there are no steri strips over the dissolving stitches. So I'll keep them on until Saturday, I guess. Until then I'm not allowed to submerge the gauze or stitches in water. I can still have a bath but I can't submerge myself the way I prefer to. Oh well. At least I can still have baths.

So that's it... it went pretty well, I think. Ian's been taking good care of me yesterday and today. He stayed with me all yesterday and was with me after I got up this afternoon. I slept until 1:15pm today and I expect to sleep more tomorrow and over the next few days as I heal. I'm looking forward to getting the biopsy results from my oncologist on June 11.

Home and in the pink

I'm home! And I'm pink! No, really, I'm pink. The stuff they use to clean and sterilize my skin is pink and takes a while to rub off. See?

See the lovely pink line on my chin? It continues
all the way down my chest and back. Not my
favourite look.

Aside from being pink, everything went well. I got home an hour or so later than I'd expected because I slept most of the afternoon instead of rushing home. I'm the least groggy I've ever been coming home from surgery, which is a nice change.

I'm still very tired and ready for some sleep, so I'll keep this short. I'll post a longer, more detailed post about today's adventures tomorrow.

Getting ready for tomorrow

I didn't cut out my fabric today. I took some time to pick out the fabric, and I decided on a cotton-lycra blend fabric in blues and greens that I bought a couple of years ago. I love the colour and the design but when I bought the fabric I didn't realize that the fabric pattern has a strong horizontal repeat. Since the pattern I'm using for this dress has bias-cut side panels I thought that this fabric would be less horizontal and would actually look good.

So I spent some time trying to figure out how to match the pattern along the seamlines. The width of a horizontal stripe turned on the bias (45 degrees) will always be greater than the width of the stripe in its normal horizontal position, so matching the two is difficult. The stripe is quite wide and there are about six of them (alternating light and dark) on the skirt. I can get about three of of the horizontal/bias stripes to work out but that's it, so I have to figure out where it's most important that the stripes match.

I decided that taking a break to give myself some time to think about and sketch this stripe match would be best, so I went for a walk. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day I ended up walking for nearly two hours! There's a wooded area over where we've been house-hunting that I didn't know about and I explored that area as well as some of the other streets that I didn't know. It was definitely the best thing I could have done for myself today... being out in the fresh air was soothing and comforting, especially with tomorrow being biopsy day.

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow's biopsy. At the moment I'm not all that concerned about what the biopsy results will be because I just want to know what's going on - no matter what the answer is, having an answer is infinitely better than not having an answer. I suspect I'll be more concerned about the results as I get closer to receiving those results, but right now I'm most concerned about the surgery itself. I wish there was a way to get answers without doing surgery because I really don't like going under a general anaesthetic and I also don't like the idea of an incision in my neck. I tend not to heal all that well, as you know, and the thought of having yet another ugly scar doesn't appeal to me.

Sigh. The end justifies the means in this case and I'm focusing all my energy on getting through tomorrow as calmly as possible. The surgery is scheduled for 1pm and is expected to take about an hour, after which I'll be recovering for a couple or three hours. I'm hoping to be home by 6ish so that I can begin to rest in my own house. Either Ian or I will let you know how things went with an update here sometime tomorrow. Thank you all for the good wishes and happy thoughts you've been sending me - I really appreciate all of them.

My pre-op appointment

My back and hips felt pretty good today after yesterday's walk. I did have some pain on my right side while I was driving to my appointment this morning but it went away once I stretched my back a bit. I went for another long (hour and a half) walk today but I used my cane. I don't want to overdo things, after all :)

My appointment this morning was my pre-op stuff for next week's biopsy. Every hospital does their pre-op stuff just a little bit differently, and I have to say that I really liked the way they did things at this hospital. Really, all I had to do was show up at their clinic and the nurse assigned to me brought all the people I needed to see right to the clinic. I had to go from the waiting room to different rooms in the clinic which I much preferred over running around from department to department trying to see people.

We did an EKG first and then the nurse said that she needed to do bloodwork. I asked her if it was at all possible to use my port and - surprise! - she said yes, that she would just call the IV tech people and have one of them do it. It was awesome! They don't do that at my regular hospital. The IV tech inserted and removed the needle a little slower than I like but I'm ok with that if they use my port at all.

Once we got the EKG and bloodwork out of the way, my nurse went through my paperwork with me and we talked about the drugs I take. One of them is Celebrex which I take to control my lower back pain and to help control the sternal pain. It can reduce blood clotting so I was told stop taking it tonight until after the procedure. Going without it might mean extra pain for me for the next week or so... which means that I won't be walking without my cane for a while. There's no point taking chances if I can't deal with the possible pain consequences, after all.

Next I saw the anaesthesiologist. After my success at getting the nurse to use my port for the bloodwork, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask the anaesthesiologist if they would be able to use my port for the IV during surgery. I explained that my veins are crap and the port was easier on everyone. The anaesthesiologist told me that it's possible to use the port for that but that they'll need to set up a bigger IV anyways. The big IV needs to be in there for the unlikely event that something goes wrong and I need a blood transfusion.

I don't know what, exactly, my face showed when he said "big IV" but inside I felt scared and my mind said, "eep!" You see, half the time when inserting an IV, the nurses need to use a teeny-tiny needle because my veins are so very bad... and a teeny-tiny needle won't work with a big IV, will it? Seeing my face he was quick to assure me that they could either put me out with gas or with a port IV and then, once I was under, they could put in the big IV. Apparently the anaesthetic is a vasodilator and that makes insertion of the big IV easier (or possible, in my case). He also said that it's fairly common for them to put that IV in after the anaesthetic has taken effect. I'm fine with that; really, as long as they don't put the big IV in while I'm awake, I'm fine with whatever else they do.

The last person I saw was a respiratory therapist. Since this procedure involves the chest cavity they want to be sure that my lungs are tip-top before they go in there. This was all new to me; I've never seen a respiratory therapist before. She first had me do a lung function test with a computerized spirometer that printed out a nifty graph.

Then she needed to do an arterial blood gas test in which blood is drawn from the artery in my wrist and the gases in it are measured. To do this, first she had to find the artery by finding the pulse. She first tried to find the pulse in my right wrist, then went to my left, then back to my right, then back again to my left, and finally was confident that she found it on my right. I know I have a pulse, but it is hard to find exactly :) it's important to find the exact location of the artery a thin needle has to go in and draw blood from the artery. She warned me that would hurt, and it did, and the spot is still sore. I wouldn't have wanted to go through that needle more than once so I appreciate her caution and thoroughness.

And that was it. They'd said that it could take as long as three hours but it only took me about two hours from start to finish and because there were so many different things to do the time flew by. Hopefully things go as smoothly and efficiently next week.

Not at my best today

I felt awful when I woke up; I had a terrible headache and I was nauseous. I think I was migrainy so instead of doing anything productive, I laid down and watched tv. Later on I felt better and did a bit of pattern preparation. I'm going to sew a top out of some striped fabric I bought ages ago - the fabric is primarily pink, yellow, and white and I think it'll be cute.

Tomorrow I need to call my doctor to find out the results from the fine-needle biopsy that my surgeon took 10 a week and a half ago. I very much hope that I don't have more cancer in my breast. I'm a little nervous about making the call tomorrow, of course, but at the same time I'd rather know what's going on. Knowing means that I can deal with it.

My incisions are healing well. There are welts from the bandagey-things that they put on that seem to be everywhere. I can also see new welts forming under the clear dressing I've currently got on the big incision. At least the bruising seems to be going down.

Awake all day

The nurse came by to change the dressings on the incisions. I can shower again! :) The incisions are healing very well. The catheter can be clearly seen on my neck when there's no dressing there - I sort of look like I'm on 'roids :) The reservoir incision is also healing well. There's a lot of bruising there and the area is quite tender. Apparently the steri-strip adhesive (that holds the incision together) didn't agree with me as there were welts under each one. Sigh. I hope that this incision heals better than all of the other cuts and incisions have healed before.

I also did some sewing today. I finished up a dress - it looks interesting although I wish it was a bit longer. It's sort of a trapeze style and is a couple of inches above the knee, which means that I can't put a belt on it to make it more shapely. If I use this pattern again (and I probably will) I'll have to make sure to lengthen it.

This evening Ian and I played Rock Band. I told you he got a PS3 console? Well, he also bought the game Rock Band, where each person can play one of the guitar, bass, vocals, and drums. I have trouble playing the guitar because my hands are so small. So I did some singing. This is about the only time anyone would encourage me to sing :) This game is a lot of fun and I'd recommend it... it also gives Ian and I something to do together when we don't want to watch tv.

I stayed home today

I decided not to go to the visitation for my friend today. I wanted to go and show my love for Pat which I would hope would provide some comfort for her husband Lee. But I wasn't really going for me to lay Pat to rest. Also, I slept all day and the port incision sites are quite tender - I can't put the passenger-side shoulder elt over them yet and it's too dangerous to drive 4 hours in total down the 401 if I can't wear the seatbelt properly.

The nurse is coming tomorrow to change the dressing for my incisions. I'm really looking forward to this as it would be nice if the dressings were smaller. It's weird because I can actually touch the catheter part on the outside of my neck and when I do poke at it, I can feel it in my neck. Both the nurse and Ian say that I'll get used to the catheter, like a person does with a watch. I don't know. Maybe once the tape is off and not pressing the catheter into my neck it'll be better.

Yesterday was also port-a-cath day

Yesterday wasn't the best day ever. Not only did my friend die, but I had to have my port-a-cath put in. If I'd had a choice, I would have postponed it for a day when I was feeling stronger.

The best part about yesterday was when I was telling the nurse about everything that was going on. She gave me a big hug and when we both had a few minutes, she came and talked to me. She'd been a palliative care nurse and so understood the emotions I was feeling. I am very grateful to her for taking the time to talk to me.

The port insertion isn't all that complicated; the two main steps are to put the catheter part into the jugular vein and to put the reservoir part into a "pocket" that they make under the skin. To do all this they give local freezing.

You may not know this, but local freezing and I do not get along. It hurts like crazy when it goes in and I usually need extra because I metabolize it strangely. So the anaesthetic portion of my adventure was pretty awful and filled with howls and screams. Some would say that I'm a big baby when it comes to local freezing pain, and those some would be right.

Things got better after that. I felt a lot of pressure and things felt weird but they got the port in without any problems. I had to spend four hours in the recovery area but that turned out ok, too. I had a big, big nap :)

I now have a gigantic bunch of padding and tape over the incisions and I'm not allowed to get that area wet, so no shower for me until at least Monday :( The area is fairly tender to the touch and is stiff when I wake up. I'm taking tylenol for the pain and stiffness; I figure there's no point taking Percocet if I don't need to. Home-care nurses are coming in on Monday and again later in the week to change the dressing and make sure things are ok.

I'm going to my bellydancing workshop, although I missed the class at noon because I slept in. My plan is to take it very easy. Tonight is the juggling festival show and I'll be going to that, too.

Tomorrow is my friend's visitation in Oshawa; the funeral is Monday starting at 11am but I can't make it to that because of the home-care nurse coming in. I hope to make it to the visitation tomorrow; Ian's offered to drive me but there are juggling people in town and it would be better if he could spend time with them.

A little shopping

So I chickened out of going to my spirituality and healing group today. What with everything, I just didn't want to go.

I ended up going to Fabricland and buying some patterns that were on sale. I looked at some fabrics but decided not to buy any - I have tons and don't need to buy any more. I didn't do any sewing or anything when I got home, though; I just watched tv.

Tomorrow morning I get my port inserted. I hope it goes well.

Recovery update

I had heard that after the kind of surgery I had that women get hot flashes and emotional right away. That hasn't happened to me. I had maybe one tiny little hot flash and I haven't been especially emotional at all. I wonder when these symptoms will arrive. Not that I'm especially looking forward to them - I'd be perfectly happy if I never got night sweats, for example.

It's almost as though my ovaries were never removed. Of course I know they were :) The pain tells me that.

I am moving around quite a bit more. I was able to walk to and from the grocery store at the corner. I'm not in nearly as much pain as before; all of the pain is focused on one area that's about 4 in x 1 in. The scars are looking good and scabby and they don't really hurt. The one in my bellybutton can be tender, if I rub it the wrong way.

Left the house today

We tried to pick up the photos from Sears today, but unfortuantely they were too busy. We waited forquite a while, but the person taking photos didn't acknowledge us or the other fellow that was there, so we left. We'll try again tomorrow.

During the wait period, we took a little walk through the mall today to the food court to get something to drink. This is the first time I've been out of the house since we got here from Mississauga last Thursday. It's also the first walk that I've taken since last Thursday, and this walk was longer than that walk.

I guess this means that I'm healing, although I've still got pain and some swelling in my abdomen. I'm looking forward to feeling like a normal person :)

Still taking it easy

I'm feeling a bit better, although I'm definitely not up to my normal, cheery self. I'm still very tired and have quite a bit of pain. At least I'm moving around quite a bit better - for the last few days, I was always hunched over clutching my abdomen to ease the pain whenever I walked around. Now I'm barely hunched over, and only need to apply a bit of pressure to my abdomen.

The information sheet I received at the hospital said that I would be back to normal activities after two or three days of recovery. Ha! I think I'll listen to my surgeon, who said it would be at least two weeks before I could participate in my normal activities.

I am watching my incisions pretty carefully; one of them is weeping a little bit and has a bit of red around it. The other two also have some red around them, too, which is new. I'm a bit worried about infection, even though I have been keeping the incisions as clean as I can (and putting dressings on them when I think they need it). I'll continue to watch the incisions over the next few days.

I finished the scarf I was knitting for Ian to go with the hat I'd knit him last year. The pictures of the hat and scarf are here. I'm now working on a sweater for me.

Some slight improvement

I took the dressings off of the incisions today. They're healing up ok and don't show any sign of infection. My abdomen is still very swollen, especially on the left. While there's still a lot of pain, it is lessening a bit - I can more easily get myself onto the couch or bed. The painkillers are also helping, though. I'm hoping that by Monday, I'll be able to actually go for a short walk at a reasonable pace.

I'm so lucky to have Ian - he's been helping a lot. I don't have the flexibility to get into the bathtub for a shower, so he's been helping me there. And he's helping me get comfortable on the couch, and he's serving me food when I'm hungry or thirsty :)

I'm about half-finished Ian's scarf. I think it's going to turn out really well.

Home now

I was feeling well enough to travel today, so we came home this afternoon. I am very grateful to Ian's parents for making as relaxing an environment as possible for us before and after the surgery. There's no place like home, though, so we were happy to come home, too. On the way home I was able to pick up the swag that the company gave each employee a couple of weeks ago. My name was in fact on the list, so I guess ther was nust a mix-up that first day there. It's a really nice light brown suede blazer-style jacket with our company logo discreetly placed on a front pocket. People had complained that the jacket was too big, but I found that it fits pretty well. The sleeves are way too long, but that's expected. I can make a small change so that the sleeves look better on me.

Ian curled tonight, and we were both concerned about me being left alone in case I needed help. Although I was feeling well enough to travel, I'm still in quite a bit of pain. I had a friend come over and keep me company for the evening, which we spent knitting and watching tv. I'm finished just under a third of Ian's scarf. I'll be glad when this scarf is done so that I can move on to one of my sweater projects :)

More surgery details

Oh yes, I am still feeling quite uncomfortable, particularly on the left side. It really, really, really hurts if I try to stretch or flex the muscles there. This makes lying down very difficult.

It was kind of a surgery adventure today. I'd been pretty impressed with the nurses and other staff there before, but this time was different.

First, the person who had done my initial intake seemed to be a bit upset when I told her that I couldn't have the type of tape she was holding up. I felt like I had inconvenienced her by my request for a different tape because I have problems with adhesives. Next, we waited in the waiting room for an hour, to 20 minutes past my new surgery time. When they came to get me, it was only to take me to xray, not to surgery. I guess that the pre-op admission clinic would normally have arranged for the xray because I have asthma.

When we got to the xray department, we were left sitting in the hall for 45 minutes. Ian went to ask them what was going on, and it turned out that the technicians didn't know that I was there. Sigh. The volunteer who delivered me there had gone to take the requisition somewhere, and another nurse from day surgery (not xray) took it away. So I suspect that this was the source of the confusion. Ummm, I had a bit of a meltdown during this time because I was so frustrated not knowing anything and because I was so scared. No one really told me what was going on, and I was worried that I wasn't going to able to have surgery today because I wasn't at surgical daycare. It seemed like there wasn't great communication between the nurses.

Once we finished all of that and did the things on the last-minute checklist, I was taken to the operating room. Luckily they had changed the surgery order because I didn't come back until 1:30pm (an hour and a half after my new surgery time), and I was able to have my surgery today. Because I have lymphedema, I'm not supposed to have either an IV or a blood pressure cuff on that arm. The anesthetist said that he didn't see why they couldn't put an IV in the lymphedema arm, so I had to explain the reasons to him. The first reason behind this is that needle pokes can get infected, leading to more lymphedema. The second reason is that if they're injecting something into my arm and for some reason it goes outside my veins, then there would be a buildup of lymph fluid to clean the area, also leading to more lymphedema. In an emergency I can have blood withdrawn from that arm, but it's better if it's left alone.

I woke up in the recovery room in a lot of pain and freezy cold. I actually became one of those people that was screaming and crying due to the pain and the cold. They gave me morphine and told me to lengthen my breathing. That's hard to do in the face of the kind of pain I had, but I was able to do that.

I slept for what seems like a long time after that. A requirement before they release you is that you have to walk to the bathroom and you have to keep down food. I was able to do both. However, the nurse wanted me lying back on the bed. She said that I should get on via a "log roll" technique, where you rest your butt on the bed and roll your shoulder onto its side, after which you bring your legs up. This technique works a LOT better if your feet can touch the ground and your butt can sit on the bed at the same time. I couldn't do that - some of you may have noticed that I am of underaverage height. So once again I became one of those people that cry, whine, and complain, this time because of the pain. It hurt a lot to try to do that manoever on that bed. The nurse just said that I shouldn't be so tense, that I should just do what she was showing me. Sigh. I told her that I couldn't do what she told me to do because the bed was too tall. She didn't bring me a stool to step on, either, which would have helped immensely.

Aside from all of the confusion, things went pretty smoothly. I am in quite a bit of pain that I hope will go away today. Or at least that will respond to painkillers :) I don't feel any different yet, either - I was worried that I would wake up feeling very different. I'm still the same old cranky me :)