Update on Ouchies and Chemo
My "Cancer Sucks" shirt from Brady.
I met with the plastic surgeon this morning and he looked at everything. He didn’t want to aspirate or put in a drain in my left breast to get the extra liquid out. There just wasn’t enough of an issue to take the chance of using a needle and possibly poking my expander in error or introducing an infection are just not worth it (uncomfortable Mandi or creating the possibility of having to have another surgery, the surgeon voted for me to be uncomfortable, go figure 🙂 ). They gave me some additional pain medicine and IB Profin to try to keep me comfortable while I continue to try to get my body to absorb everything (which means no more driving again and more naps and rest time). Expansion may help to push the fluid out if we do that next week.
The right side’s issue with the incision opening up a bit was a greater cause for concern to the doctor. He prescribed me some Silvadene cream to put on the sore and I have to try to help it heal up. The small issue is that the Silvadene has an antibiotic in it that I am allergic too, but it is so effective they want me to still try to use it and hope that I don’t have an allergic reaction. It is a cream they use on burns to help heal them and keep them from getting infected. The sore meant that that I was not able to have my first expansion today.
I have a feeling this will stack get larger after I start chemo.
I have to go in to see the plastic surgeon next Friday (the 25th) for him to determine whether or not I can go ahead and start chemo that day. So I just won’t know until the last minute whether or not I will have the ok to start chemo for my breast cancer (I will probably have an idea based on how the sore has healed up by then). So there is still a chance it could get delayed for a week. Meeting with the surgeon was good because he did make me feel like I wasn’t completely falling apart, that I was just needing to rest up a bit better than I wanted to (this is probably a lesson I will get to learn a few times in the coming year as I always want to “go go go” even when I shouldn’t).
Feeling crummier this week cause me to go ahead and take some of Thursday and today off to just sit still and heal up (now I know for my reconstruction surgery at the end of this year, that even if I feel like I can do a lot of things, I probably shouldn’t). With a long weekend and forcing myself to be less mobile I hope to get everything back in order for next Friday. Overall I am not really in pain or suffering immensely, I am just uncomfortable, and get much more uncomfortable if I push myself too hard (which I was really starting to do this last week with work in the office, cooking and trying to take care of the house to give Mike a bit of a break (even though he didn’t ask for it)).
A pair of lemons for lemonade. 🙂
Some of the awesome ladies at work are going to put together a Race for the Cure team with a lemon/lemonade theme going on (rumor has it, one of them may even go for running in a lemon suit). I thought maybe it would be fun if I (or if a super awesome graphic designer I know) spent time trying to make a cute Darn Good Lemonade logo. The race is in May, I may not be able to run it or walk it with them, but I will definitely come with some pom poms and lemonade to cheer them on! I bought the stock photo that I have wanted for a bit in case they wanted it for the team attire..
