Alive and Well

I promised an update as soon as I was able, so here it is. I was released from the hospital about an hour ago, and I'm doing really, really well.

First, I want to thank everyone who was there for me. Some of you were there at the hospital for me, and others were just there in spirit. I appreciate all of your prayers, positive energy, and good vibes. Someone was listening because I came through it all with ease.

As you have read in my previous entries, I was a bit scared going into it. But, I came out of it just fine. I had some great self-hypnosis and relaxation CDs (thanks Jim and Julie) that helped me prepare for the surgery beforehand. I listened to these many times in the days leading up to my surgery. They were amazing and made my surgery very easy for me.

Before wheeling me into surgery, they gave me a sedative, and I don't remember much after that. The next thing I know, I was waking up after surgery. I was in no pain. They kept me in recovery for about half an hour after I woke up before taking me to my room. My family and friends were there waiting for me, and it was wonderful.

I did pretty well the first night except that I was unable to eat much without feeling a little nauseous. We thought it might be side effects from the anesthesia. We discovered the next morning (after I threw up my liquid breakfast) that I can't have morphine. So, they switched me to dilodid. It's about 10 times more powerful than morphine, but they give you a much smaller dose. At any rate, it did the trick. Within minutes of switching me over, the nausea went away permenantly... much to my relief. After that, I was able to get up and move about without dizziness. I was able to eat with confidence, and that's when I started really feeling good.

After everyone left my room the first evening, the nurse came in to check on my incisions. That was the first look I had at myself, and I was completely okay with it. Everything I did to prepare for the loss made it possible for me to see that and not feel bad about it. I had already been mourning the loss, and now it was over. Instead, I found that I just felt this huge relief that the cancer was out of my body. I didn't feel mutilated or anything. I think I had prepared for the absolute worst and, of course, it wasn't that bad, so it made the entire thing much easier to deal with.

There was also something that happened right before surgery that helped me with it too. There was almost a mix-up over whether they were going to remove my right breast. As you know, all the cancer is in the left breast and, at the moment, the right breast was perfectly healthy. Somehow, there was a miscommunication and the surgeon doing the mastectomy on my left side didn't realize he was supposed to do my right side too. He came in and talked to me about it. He wanted to make sure I absolutely understood that there was no medical indication for doing it (in other words, the breast was healthy) and that I wanted to do it anyway. I explained to him that I never want to go through this again, particularly with such an aggressive form of cancer. Once he understood that, everything was a go. But the good thing about that was that it allowed me to confirm my decision and realize that I would have been far more devastated by the presence of my breast after surgery than I was by the loss of it. Nothing like a little perspective, eh?

Anyway, I've come out of it all really well. I feel great physically and emotionally. The drainage bags (called JP cups after their inventor ,Jackson Pratt) are a little weird. And they can be a bit painful when they are being emptied. But, I'll only have those for a couple of days. Cathy and Dave will be helping me out with those. They were well-trained at the hospital, and I have the utmost confidence that they will do fine.

Well, I'm literally falling asleep here as I type this (thanks to vicodin), so I'm going to go now. Blame all the typos, run-on sentences and missing words on the drugs. I'll write more (and fix my mistakes) when I'm more coherent.