Back home from the hospital. wow, what an ordeal!

I checked in and they started trying to put an iv in me. That is never fun, but apparently chemo degrades the ability of your veins to take an iv. They tried in 5 different places. Yes 5 times before they decided they would check with my surgeon if they could use my port. Thank goodness he agreed and finally they inserted an iv and I was able to get some drugs for the anxiety.

Next, my plastic surgeon came in. He marked on my breasts where he wanted the surgeon to make the incisions to minimize scarring for his reconstruction. I had called his office to let them know when the surgery was, but I found out later that he did not get that message and called my cell phone asking if I wanted to come in to the office prior to the surgery and get marked. When he didn’t get a response, he checked the surgery schedule and came to me at the hospital. He’s a nice guy.

Off to surgery I go. Three hours later, the surgeon comes out to talk to Scott, my mom and my sister. This surgeon is a riot, he has a very heavy accent - Iraqi- and a very high opinion of himself. I guess if you are having surgery, you want it done by someone who thinks he is the best at what he does. So out comes Dr. A telling them that all went well, that no does this surgery like he does and he is the best at it, blah blah blah. Then he announces to my family and of course all the wonderful friends who were there to support us that he saved my left nipple! Oh thank goodness, that was what I was worried about. And I am sure the rest of the neighborhood was vastly relieved as well.

I am in recovery at this time and not really coming around as expected. Scott believes I am doing ok and goes home. About that time I start to come around a little. I start projectile vomiting across the room. I see a bunch of people running around me in and out of the room and don’t remember anything else until later that night when I am moved into another room. It seems that my oxygen saturation rate dropped below 70% and the nurses called the rapid response team. They said I “coded”, whatever that means to them, and I was just a few minutes away from being intubated to restore my breathing. They were able to revive me and avoid all of that.

The next day, we find out the details from the night before. I am still on oxygen because I am not taking in room air well. We also find out I have fluid in my lungs and one is partially collapsed and has probably been that way for a while. I am not taking in food yet, so they try me on a liquid diet at lunch. (St. Luke’s has a neat system for food. They call it room service. There is a menu in your room and you call them, they check your file, to see what type of food you can have and then you choose from the menu.) i have some chicken broth which goes down and back up again immediately. So I’m off food again. It doesn’t seem to help much as I am still throwing up and not absorbing oxygen well. The new diagnosis is I am having a reaction to the pain medication. They stop the old and bring in new. This seems to help the nausea and the next day I am started back on food.

My oncology doctor has been checking on me everyday and he comes in on Wednesday, crying. Scott and I look at each other scared to death: What now? He was just overcome with happiness for me because (and this deserves bold print and exclamation points) THE PATHOLOGY REPORT CAME BACK IN WITH NO CANCER. ALL THE LYMPH NODES THEY TOOK WERE CLEAR AND THE TISSUE SAMPLES SHOWED NO ACTIVE CANCER LEFT ONLY DEAD TISSUE FROM WHERE THE TUMOR WAS!!!!
All the hell that was chemo for so many months was worthwhile. It worked! It worked! It worked! Oh thank God!

But the fun wasn’t over for me. My white cell count went up and my red count was down. The doctors weren’t letting me go anywhere until those things were rectified. They even were talking about making me have oxygen in the house when I did go home. Fortunately the white cell count rectified itself but I had to have 2 units of blood to get my count up to an almost normal level.

What is it about hospitals? What do they have against sleeping people? They come in all night to take vitals, blood and just to check on you. Then there is the non-stop beeping from my oxygen machine, and the alarm that goes off when I go under 85%. I have to unplug from everything every time I go to the bathroom and because of where they put the tissue dispenser and my surgery incisions, I can’t reach the tissue once I sit down, so I have to remember to get it before. Minor details that are a real problem when it affects you.

On Saturday, as a doctor would come in for rounds I would ask him what I needed to do to get out. Each said they were done with me, so I asked them to put it on the computer. This finally sprung me and I was on my way home! Without boobs, with drains and a lot of pain but at least this part is over.