Bye Bye Cancer, Bye Bye Boobs

Cancer free, cancer free, it’s great to be cancer free!!!

Well I am officially cancer free (and for the moment boob free). My expanders are in place and I think I will be starting the filling process in a few weeks. I had my follow up appointment with the breast surgeon yesterday (which went well, more on that below) and I will see the plastic surgeon on Tuesday (I will be sure to let you know how that goes). During my short hospital stay they were very happy with how I was healing. Most of my pain has been in the armpit area (where the lymph nodes were removed) and where the drains are. I don’t remember a whole lot about my hospital stay except that my wonderful family was by my side the whole time. My hubby spent both nights with me which was a good thing because he spent most of that time scratching my itchy spots about every 30 seconds. The anesthesia and the morphine made me so itchy. During the day I felt like Cleopatra only instead of people on either side of me fanning they were scratching.

My surgery was Friday and I came home Sunday. Kind of quick but I was happy to go home until I got very car sick. That made for a horrible day. The doctor called in a script that was very helpful. Since then I have had good days and bad days. I think the pain medication makes me feel light headed and nauseous some times (not to mention giving me CRAZY dreams). Not having the full use of my arms is not much fun and very hard. I don’t have much range of motion right now. I have started doing my exercises so that should help. Showers are an interesting experience since the plastic surgeon doesn’t want me to get my incisions wet yet. I am not the most pleasant smelling person these days either. I am not allowed to use deodorant yet…blah. I can barely stand the smell of myself. My hubby, sister, and sister in law have spent the week taking care of me plus lots of company from family. Family and friends have also sent over lots of food which has been very helpful.

Right now I have a lot of numb areas. The most uncomfortable thing is the drains. I can’t wait to get those out. That will be up to the plastic surgeon.

I hadn’t looked at my boob-less chest yet and I was thinking of waiting till Halloween to check it out (I thought that would be appropriate :) but then I thought I better look before I see the breast surgeon in case I had any questions. Before I looked I imagined the worst thing I could. The reality was a little worse. Mainly all the extra skin. It doesn't bother me tho. As I said it is great to be cancer free. This of course will also improve as the plastic surgeon does his thing.

Speaking of the breast surgeon my appointment with him went well. The skin and incisions look very good. When you have breast tissue removed the surgeon leaves the skin very thin and sometimes the skin can die which makes the skin turn black. I have almost no areas of black. He said there may be some near the incision but it is hard to tell with all the steri-strips. The pathology is back. The tumor was a little bigger than they thought, 3cm not 2. The left side breast tissue and sentinel lymph nodes were all clear. One of the sentinel nodes on the right had a micro metastasis (a very small cluster of cancer cells, not enough to warrant going back in to take the rest of the nodes out). This will most likely change the chemo treatment a bit. I have an appointment with the Oncologist scheduled for November 12th. I will let you know how that goes too.