Post-surgery

I am a visual thinker. I like to be able to visualize how a web site will visually appear to the user before I begin coding, how a document will be presented as I write it, how the finished cake will look before I begin baking. Even the big-life events I try to visualize before they happen, the birth of my first daughter, meeting my second daughter for the first time, moving to a new house. The mastectomy scared me largely because I couldn't visualize what I'd look like, how my life would look, after...

Five days after the surgery, I'm still not sure how I'll look. Right now, I have four tubes coming out of my ribcage, these lead to four bulbs that collect fluid from the surgical sites. I also have two long, C-shaped scars across my chest and under my arms, a little longer on the right where the surgeon did the sentinel node biopsy. When I get dressed, I wear big shirts and sweaters over my ace bandage and the special T-shirts that hold the drain bulbs around my middle. Frankly, I look pregnant!

My day to day life right now is much much slower than I'm used to. My mom, husband and friends are taking care of my girls and the household chores, work is going on without me or holding until I get back. I'm spending way more time in bed than I have in years, I take walks every day to try and keep the back pain and leg cramps under control, I'm trying to read and watch movies, but really, my attention span is just awful right now, so I'm doing a whole lot of nothing. I blame the Vicodin for that.

I feel like I'm on hold. Wednesday I get the drains removed. Once those are gone I can begin working on stretching my arms and building up my strength again (right now I can't lift my arms above my head or lift anything at all). When I get my arms working, I can drive again and hopefully go back to work soon. As I try to get those things under control, we'll also deal with the rest of the cancer issues. The pathology report will tell us how extensive the cancer was and whether the mastectomy tissue had a clean margin. Thankfully, we already know that the lymph node was clear. After the pathology comes back, I'll meet with my oncologist to talk about the follow up (adjuvent) treatment options. Eight weeks after surgery, I'll go get fitted for prosthetics and learn how to dress with fake breasts.

Then, at some point after all of that, I'll begin my life again, post-breast cancer and with a "new normal" that I still can't quite visualize.