Pre-op rundown

 Sunday night we stayed at some friends' in the city so that we wouldn't have to make the 2 hour drive first thing in the morning for my 9 AM pre-op appointment. Thank you again, you guys, for your hospitality! It is a bright spot in what otherwise feels like a not fun trip. So appreciated!

I got signed in, having done all the questionnaires online ahead of time, and was told, "you'll have your appointment with Katie, then a chest X-ray and some labs." 

Oh hold up, there; nobody had said anything about labs. Maybe I should have assumed there'd be some, but you know what they say about assuming. Plus, last time I was in, I'd asked and they gave me the lab form to give to my oncologist the next time I had them done.

Which was July 29th.

They want within-a-month-of-the-surgery labs. 

Bah.

So anyway, we do the gig with Katie, who is wonderful and answers all my questions, ridiculous or not. I discovered I am NOT, in fact, allowed to have my anxiety medication (that I only GOT for before stressful appointments, gah!)  before the feels-like-an-angry-hornet part of the procedure. Thank you, Mike, for the bite sticks! They are already in my Must Pack stack.

She asked about muscle pain. Um, you mean the constant knot in my right shoulder where all my stress has gone over my entire life? She smiled and asked if it is worse now. Um, yes, haha. I am allowed to take Tylenol, but no Advil or Aleve and so forth for the week before surgery. I guess that is par for the course. Any nurses can set me straight. 

Do I need to buy a front closure sports bra for afterwards, especially as I have no freakin' boobs to put in one? Haha, no, we will send you home wearing one and it needs to stay on for at least 48 hours and then it's up to you to wear it, not wear it, whatever feels best. It's kind of there to protect that dressing and provide some compression. Hooray, crossing that off the walmart list. 

We ask, "do we really need to come back Thursday for the plastics' pre-op? What is he going to do?" She looked things over, shook her head and replied, "I don't even know WHAT he would be doing... I'm already ordering everything you need. I'll call him and see if you can skip that appointment." 

So I head downstairs, still in my stylish light pink open-in-the-front doctors' office gown to get my chest X-ray. The tech tried five times but her machine was giving her grief. She's grumbling as she resets it again and again, "I already recalibrated this thing... what is going ON?" I mused that it was Monday morning, maybe it just didn't feel like working. In exasperation she sent me to the lab while she called her boss to see what to do next, telling me to come back when I'm done with labs.

So, STILL in my height-of-fashion gown, I bebop down the hall to the vampire lair lab and sit down with a chipper tech who said, "you got your chest X-ray done already?"

"Nope, it's not working. I'm supposed to go back. I told her maybe it's because it's Monday."

She sat back in her chair with big eyes and said, "AND we had a fire drill this morning. Now I ask you, who would schedule one of those for first thing on a Monday morning? They KNOW we are so busy. Those alarms! Ugh!"

So we laughed as she tried stabbing me to find a suitable vein, gave up, got a different needle and stuck it after calling it a "bugger" which cracked me up again because that's what my Nana used to call my Thingz. 

I impress Dada who is waiting with my paraphernalia (what a ROTTEN word. Took me 5 tries and I STILL had to look it up) like my clothes, water bottle, purse, sunglasses, paperwork and second booklet on the surgery prep and recovery that the nurse had given me... anyway, he's impressed that I'm walking out of there on my own two feet and in a good mood. He inquired, "She got you on the first stick? Wow!" 

"NOPE!"

"Wowwwwww. Need anything? Need me to steady you?"

After reassuring him I was fine and relaying the intel about the fire drill, we head back to the lab, get the thumbs up from the tech who takes me right back, snaps the X-ray, tells me I can change and go home. 

We drove back and celebrated with steak as I'm supposed to start my higher protein diet (aiming for 90 grams a day, good gravy, there's no way) to increase protein stores that my body will draw from after surgery to heal the wound. Fascinating! 

Yesterday, Katie called me to make sure I'd seen the results of my labs- my blood glucose had been low and she'd told me I needed to eat; I told her what I HAD eaten and she decided it was a glitch and to not worry about it- and to ask if I had any more questions. She let me know I didn't need to go to the plastics' pre-op appointment. Woohoo for an open day not spent in the car! Thank you!

Then the plastics' doc called me, sounded like from his car, to tell me that appointment really had only been for in case I had burning questions that needed answered or if I felt he'd already covered anything. I asked, "it says 'no lotions' in the book- is it because they figure by telling you to use none anywhere it's safer than telling you to avoid the area lest you forget and slather it on anyway?" He said, "I don't know why they say that unless it's in case you'd get a skin reaction from it, but if it's something you're already using every day, just avoid your breast area and upper extremity and it will be fine." Personally, I figure supple, well-moisturized skin would be more cooperative during surgery and heal better than dried out, flaky skin, but I lack a medical degree just as I lack a theological one. So no lotion right side going in. Got it. I thought it was so nice of him to call. He could have just checked in via MyChart...

Thank you to all those who have left notes or texts or calls and so forth to let me know you're following along and to support. You are amazing. I love all of you.

If you need me, I'll be over here munching my almonds, having my call with the OR nurses, rubbing my right shoulder, and avoiding germy people. Wash your hands and have a wonderful hump day!

Goliath is down!

*Viewer discretion is advised for photographic content*

Once again, I am humbled and blessed by the faithfulness of my mighty God. In a week full of scary firsts, he held me close through every medical test, chemotherapy administration, and port placement surgery, not to mention keeping all 3 Things safe on their field trips, rides to and from and during karate, and Real Life in general. I truly do not understand how those who choose to do life without God can even summon enough courage to get out of bed in the morning.

Some of you know from my frantic "I am going to bite something, someone, anything" texts how badly I cope at waiting while being hungry and thirsty. I was instructed to eat or drink nothing, not chew gum, not consume mints, nothing after midnight on Thursday in preparation for the port surgery Friday around lunch. For those of you keeping track, that meant this Hobbit would miss breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, and perhaps not be eating until afternoon tea, which is just about as unacceptable as it gets for a poor, pitiful, pathetic Hobbit whose brain felt like it had shriveled to the size of a raisin in the back of her head by the time she was rolling into surgery. I've tried to be really, really good about drinking especially as I want my veins to be stab-able on the first try! To not have any water in me was terrifying, and I wasn't sure they'd be able to use the IV needle that my kind oncologist's office had left in just in case.

Thankfully they were after flushing it and making sure there were no signs of infection brewing. I was still poked to give blood, but Steve was quick and compassionate and so sweet that he made the first few tears fall. For whatever reason, it is so hard sometimes to be on the receiving end of kindness. Sometimes I wish they'd just be brisk and then leave, but the extra encouraging word just about breaks my heart.

Soon enough we met with the surgeon one more time to go over what would happen, and then met the anesthesiologist who had his own questions to which I answered, "I'm a boring patient." He grinned at me and said he liked boring patients. I felt like I was in good hands. The friendly, cute nurses came to stick in my relaxing, "pre-anesthesia margarita" (as my Aunt Chris calls it) and wheeled me off to the OR. 

I remember commenting that Liam would love the OR because the lights reminded me of an octopus, the huge digital clock on the wall, the myriad of Stuff I'd never know the purposes of. I met another nurse but didn't catch her name. I don't remember anything else. 

Apparently, according to Dada, while under general anesthesia, I grilled my surgeon about if he'd always wanted to be a doctor. I don't even remember seeing him or the anesthesiologist enter the room! I can just hear Nana laughing about "how nebby" I am... nice to know that my subconscious and my mouth still take over even when I'm under. Yikes.

When I woke up in recovery there were more nurses to meet, and my sweet friend Cheryl from mammograms came to take my chest X-Ray, a precautionary measure after port insertion as that procedure does involve sticking a needle and catheter into a big vein. They could potentially puncture a lung, hence the "before you go anywhere, you're getting an X-Ray" habit. In my case, all was well. Yay! Good job, everybody!

I think I spent close to an hour in recovery, looking around, watching the nurses, hearing the heartbreaking cough of a small person, chitchatting with whichever nurse was checking on me, finally some ice water after my X-Ray showed all was well, and I think my surgeon came in to say the first spot they tried twice didn't work so they had to move to plan B, which was something we'd covered ahead of time.  

They wheeled me out to the post-recovery place where I was allowed to get dressed with Dada's help, went over how to take care of things, some more chit chat to yet another friendly, smiling nurse. I was released with a scrip for pain meds and sent on my way with well-wishes.

Every single person there was once again, kind, thoughtful, comforting, encouraging. Thank you God for the medical personnel you have in my life!

We dropped off my scrip, headed to one of our favorite down town restaurants where I finally got to dig into some fries and a BLT and the best ice water with lemon I swear I've ever tasted. Then Dada ordered pie a la mode and I ate almost all his ice cream.

We picked up my meds, including an allergy med and Aleve which I'm supposed to take during and after my infusion for my white blood cell booster. 

We went home and tucked me into a big chair with my snazzy fancy blanket from my girls where I zoned out with a few episodes of Star Trek- The Next Generation. Yes, I'm a nerd. I wasn't sure I'd have the brain power to stay awake through anything with real thought required. I almost dozed off multiple times as it was.

Dada brought me an ice pack for over my incisions and a heating pad for over the back of my neck and shoulders, which was definitely the sorest part. I must have been propped up pretty high during the surgery or something because my range of motion as far as turning my head went is still a little affected. The heating pad worked wonders and I might replace it again tonight. I went to sleep with it and the ice pack and slept about 4 hours with them mostly in place before I woke up to use the bathroom and drink some more. I got several more hours of sleep until the morning noise around here (i.e. Bosley and birds) got too distracting. I needed to drink some more and use the bathroom again anyway, haha.

So I took all my meds that I needed to take for the first half of today, had breakfast, and headed off to karate graduation, which went very well. I sat with two of my best karate mom friends and my family and watched Damon receive his black belt! Yay kiddo! Lots of hard work went into that, let me tell you. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them from Dada's phone to mine...

Yet another thank you to every person who has been praying, for those of you sticking me on the prayer lists you know about, for lifting me up, for sending me cards and Stuff, for the cookies and the texts and the love that we are feeling every step of this journey. I can't express how amazing it is to be so covered! Thank you! You are wonderful and I am so thankful that God has put you in my life!

I realize this is a private photo and much thought has gone into placing it here where it will no longer be private. The truth is that this is all crazy and confusing and will very likely get much worse before it gets better. I don't know what five more sessions of chemo will do to me other than hair loss for sure. I have no idea what kind of future surgery awaits me, what the scarring from that will look like inside where nobody can see it and out where the whole world could, or how I will feel when this whole adventure is over and I'm proclaimed in remission, should that be God's will. 

I picked this one because I am smiling. I am upright and healing. I look strong after what has been the hardest week of my life. 

"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous- how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." ~Psalm 139:13-16

"She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future." ~Proverbs 31:25

Goliath never stood a chance.