When I woke up in recovery from my surgery the first thing I thought to do when my eyes opened was peak under the covers. I guess in my drugged haze I was expecting to see that horrifying image right then when I woke in recovery. Of course I was just wrapped up and saw nothing, phew! All that was going on at that point was a severe migraine and crazy burning throbbing hot pain through my arm and chest and a really dry hot throat. I was in and out of consciousness for a few hours. I was in recovery for a really long time as the pain was unrelenting at that time. They kept giving me more and more morphine, but it had no effect on the pain in my chest and arm. A few hours later, after I got yet another dose, I finally felt the relief of no pain. The nurse then informed me it was a good thing it worked as she had given me my last shot of prescribed morphine and was about to page the doctor for a next step to deal with the pain. Thank goodness! I chilled there for a while longer for them to monitor me, I still had a huge headache but they did eventually move me to a mobile stretcher and wheel me up to my room. That stretcher ride to my room was an experience on its own while on serious drugs. I'm totally horizontal and I watched the lights on the hall ceiling go by one by one, I was counting them but kept losing count and starting again and smiling to myself that I couldn't count past 8 for some reason, I remember chuckling to myself about playing whack-a-mole on the heads that kept popping in to my line of vision from sides of the bed I was being wheeled on. "Kelly, we're just gonna take you up to your room now." Whack! "We're just getting on the elevator dear." Whack! "This is your floor nurse Wendy." Whack! My dad's head appeared when I got to the floor. Whack! Ha ha ha, wheeee! Everyone seemed upset yet I was really groggy but I was in pretty good spirits thanks to my friend morphine. I think it was my brother who later informed me about a totally different experience that everyone waiting had. Firstly, back to Code Blue. That apparently happened about 10 minutes after I had left my family. There they were in the waiting room and it was quiet until over the intercom came 'Code Blue, day surgery, Code Blue.' I can only imagine a pin dropping after that. Craig said that they were looking around at each other but no one said anything. Of course, the chart showing the different colour codes and definitions was there for them to view. Code Blue is cardiac arrest, the worst code (Code Red is fire, duh!) Rationally, they had to know that there was no way it could've been me so soon, but I don't think that was a comforting thought to any of them. I don't know what else was said among them but I can imagine that that set the tone for what was about to be a very long day. Apparently, after my surgery came more upsetting news. My surgeon ended up going to the waiting room to speak with my family, and they were bombarding him with questions he couldn't answer without me being present, which was probably frustrating for all parties. I think that I may have been a little light on information about my actual tumour size, stage, etc. before then so hearing from my super-serious and monotone surgeon about the size of it and that it was advanced was too much for them to take in and something my surgeon would've presumed they already knew. And then I spent a long time in recovery, which they were probably worried about as well. It was a lot to take in for them and I didn't know any of that until much later. Everyone left pretty soon after I was in my bed as I was in and out of consciousness. Shawn's aunt had given me a breast cancer pink bear that was so soft and comforting and I brought him to the hospital with me and snuggled with him all night. That night Carm and Jess came to visit me but again, I remember small bits of it and that I was totally out of it. I remember Kelly scaring the crap outta me when she came as she was trying to be stealth and drop off a card and beautiful flowers while I was sleeping! ;P It was really sweet that she came and she stayed for a little while and kept me company. That night, I was up hourly but it was pretty peaceful and uneventful. I was able to get up and go to the bathroom without assistance and I had magazines to entertain me, but really, I just slept and lay there and slept more. I had a small confrontation with one of the nurses in the morning. She must've just started her shift as I didn't recognize her from earlier. She was bringing in my food tray in the morning with another nurse, and she rudely and loudly and exasperatedly told me that I couldn't have all that 'stuff' on the tray beside my bed. I look at her baffled and counter, "So move it!" She's shocked and taken aback at my defiant rebuttal I guess and goes on the defense immediately. She states she's not being rude, she just needs to put the tray down on that. I point out that there are two nurses standing in front of me, I tell her that she is in fact, being rude. I didn't put the offending articles on the table and I'm in no position to move any of it as per my whole right side being bandaged up, the side where the table is. That the interpretation of rudeness is left to the person on the receiving end and not the administering end, is it not? I think the other nurse wants to laugh but the rude one did kind of apologize through her actions, I'll give her that. She also had to wheel me around later and was being really chaste after so I acted like it didn't happen and was chatty and amicable with her I'd like to think. The other nurse simply took the cups and cards and stuff and moved it to the other table. They left me with my tray of food. I was starving as I hadn't eaten in about 24 hours and couldn't wait to ingest something, even if it was hospital food. I lifted one of the lids to see a big plate with a teensy eggo waffle on it. Just one. No syrup, just a butter pack. Close that lid, open the next one. Porridge. I'm not going to say oatmeal because I like oatmeal. This was porridge. It was in the shape of an upside down jelly mold and smelled bad and was lumpy and solid and just disgusting. I groaned, laughed, took the milk and pushed the rest aside. Shawn came in a few minutes later, I was so happy to see him! He was happy to see me too. :) He lay beside me on the bed and we chilled like that until I got to leave, which was a few hours later. I was getting a bone scan that day so I had to hang out for them to come and get me. This is where they inject your blood stream with radiation, wait an hour for the dye to course through you and then they xray your skeleton to check for cancer in your bones. A few days earlier I had an abdomen ultrasound for them to check for spreading to my organs and I'd get all the results at my next appt with the surgeon.
The nurse came in to change my bandages. When the nurse asked me if she could rewrap my bandage for me, I said, "Nah, no thanks, I'll do it myself when I get home." Are you sure, I can just do it for you so you don't have to? No no, it's fine, don't even worry about it, no big deal. I'm sooo tough! Ha! I just didn't want to see it and didn't want to look away like a p***y and have her see that and I didn't want to watch her face for any signs of horror as she changed my bandage. I wanted all of that to be a private thing for me. So she took off just the tensor that was wrapped around my chest and said that there was no blood through the gauze so it was fine to leave that way for now. The physiotherapist came in the morning before I left to go over exercises with me. She was really happy with the mobility, crossed off a whole bunch of exercises she said I wouldn't need to do and told me in her opinion, I didn't need actual physio, I should be fine to simply do the exercises from home. This was great to hear. Also, when I did get home, I was walking around immediately and felt pretty good, albeit high on morphine and then Oxycontin. I had excellent mobility in my right arm for just having had all my lymph nodes removed as well as my breast. They had opted to take all my lymph nodes on the right side as well as the breast. This decision had been made because of the size of my tumour and the length of time they'd suspected I had it. They were worried about my nodes as there was a more than good chance that the cells would have spread to them so they wanted to get them out too. That's how the cancer would travel to the other parts of my body, bones, brain, lungs, liver etc. and that's how cancer kills you. They would remove them and analyze them and see how many had been affected and then they could decide on an action plan. So not only am I getting the boob removed, but there is a chance that the right side of my body will remain swollen for the rest of my life since I won't have any nodes to filter the fluid, which can cause a build up hence the permanent swelling. My arm may be numb forever and/or my mobility compromised. If they told me at the same time that my skeleton may start to protrude through my skin or that I may permanently turn green as a side effect, I truly wouldn't have been surprised. Keep in mind I still have the image of the mastectomy to contend with. Basically, I'm gonna be frankenstein, but cool, I'll stay positive, I'm alive, I'm mentally sound (although tested at every turn) but I can handle this. If there's one thing that I can firmly say for sure, is that I do believe that in life, you are not given anything you can't handle, that's why it's given to you to go through. I've lived my life this way, this diagnosis doesn't change that, it affirms it. I still have my 'why me?' moments, I'm human, but they don't consume me, strength of will does. I have been blessed with the strength to see this through, learn from it and improve upon it. Everything happens for a reason. It may be that I've been diagnosed with cancer at 29 because it has made me quit smoking and if I continued smoking I was gonna die at 37 from heart disease or stroke, so my cancer diagnosis has actually saved my life instead of simply hijacking it. Doesn't it make sense that I'm the one who's going through this because I'm the one that can and will handle this? I mean, anyone who deals with anything 'handles it' just by getting up in the morning and breathing, that's not something special you do, you're not given a choice, but the 'how' is vastly different for everyone. I'm telling you right now, I don't know if and or how I'd 'handle it' if someone I love was going through this and I was the one on the helpless side. I'm in the better seat from my perspective and that is why this is happening to me. Everything is relative and your own quality of life totally depends of how you choose to view it, the world, yourself, and others, in my humble opinion anyway. Anyway, that's my reality and it works for me. I'm an avid reader, and to date my favourite book in the world is one that was given to me by my girl Caroline a few years ago called 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. One of my many favourite quotes by Coelho is that "simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them." I've bought a whole bunch of his other work and am looking forward to reading those too soon. The core of 'The Alchemist's' philosophy is "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." Isn't that a comforting concept? It is to me. I read in Dr. Marla's book another amazing view, and the book is not in front of me so I'll misquote, but the gist is "being courageous has nothing to do with fighting a battle you have no choice but to fight, it's how you choose to fight it that is the definition of courage." I love that! I roll my eyes internally when people who don't really know me talk to me about being courageous or something of the sort. I don't get it, I'm courageous because I got cancer? That just makes no sense to me and it's such a silly thing to say so I totally related to that quote in that book.
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