Off With Her Boobs!!

It's about time I got to blogging about the actual main event in my battle with cancer thus far. But thanks to lots of good drugs my eyes have been drooping after looking at 3 sentences of text so writing wasn't in the cards. Reading Facebook statuses was just perfect though, hell half of them are just pictures now, shared ones that aren't even pics of my friends, the people I want to look at. Or they're political rants. Or in my case lately they're breast cancer awareness shares so I'm ratting on myself too. I didn't even plan this rant so I don't know where it's coming from. I just miss the old Facebook so everyone just for me, the sick cancer girl, take a selfie in your bathroom today and a pic of your dinner and post it up. Selfie of you eating a chocolate bunny gets extra points.

Enough of that and on to nipple injections, boob slicing, and blue pee pee! First of all, your prayers worked. I woke up cool as a cucumber and I didn't have to take any meds to get there. I laughed and joked my way to admissions and down to the basement of the hospital (our old spot Stacy Potter!!!) to nuclear med. Eric got to be in the room with me while they injected my nipple with numbing agent...no big deal. Then some other needle injected it with radioactive tracer. I wish I could be more descriptive but you're crazy if you think I watch this stuff. Then it got pretty cool. They used a machine that watched the tracer disperse through my body over the course of a half hour. On the monitor that I could see too there was a big circular glowing area and after about 10 minutes it had a little glowing ball close by. It looked like the sun and Mercury. Mercury was my Sentinel lymph node! Some high tech way to find it on my body ensued and a low tech sharpie marker made an x where they should dig in and get him out. After that, I'm on my way to the preop holding cells.

Things get fuzzy here because once you get to your preop cell they take some vitals, take some blood,  some lady came and gave a talk about signing over my tissue in the name of science and I gladly signed over my boobs, hoping they could bring joy to others. Then they gave me a 1mg Ativan, a big daddy! I've never had a 1 mg before and this was after the .5 mg I popped on the way to the hospital. (I said I woke up cool as a cuke, I didn't say I stayed that way). So bottom line, I'm feeling good. Anesthesiologist comes in, is a doll. Plastic surgeon and his team come in, is a total doll, I really like this man. Dr. Potochny, if you're in the market for new jugs. My breast surgeon doesn't come visit because she's prepping in the OR and I'd rather her be prepping, praying, meditating, whatever the hell she needs to do to make miracles happen, than come over around all these sick people and bull shit with me. Then they say that it's about time to roll out and I say wait, we need to pray. My coworker Mary is a 5 year breast cancer survivor and the holiest person I know. She prayed over me with oils and I felt so at ease. Then a nurse injected something into my vein and said "we like to call this a glass of wine" and there I was having communion right before going under the knife...perfect!

So they roll me down the hall, Eric takes a picture of me smiling like I'm going on a joyride which I don't remember. My mom apparently was crying and I said "don't worry mom, I will be fine!" Right choice of words in my inebriated state, better than the time in college where I got very drunk and sick and called her and said "I'm going to die, I drank too much, I love you, but I'm going to die." That move right there was probably why I got cancer. What an asshole!

Then I see an OR room, it's very busy. A few women with caps and green masks introduce themselves (girl power!!) and one is my surgeon. A man tells me to jump to the other table from my rolly bed and that's it. No mask, no counting down, I am out.

And a minute later I'm awake and I ask if it happened. They say yes you did good. They put me in my postop cell and I vaguely remember mom, Eric and Mary coming in. I ask about nodes. They say the sentinel was clean! I remember saying praise God over and over. Then they come right in and say its dinner time. Holy cow, is this the best day of my life or what?! I start chowing on broccoli (anti cancer diet starts now!!) and drink two ginger ales. Then I had to pee so I had to walk down the hall which sucked. Ladies, think of when you first had to get up after child birth, only there wasn't blood dripping everywhere. So after a sentinel node biopsy your pee is blue because they inject blue dye into your boob after you're under that also finds the sentinel node so they can be doubly sure they're getting the right guy. Anyway, it's cool and I have a pic of my blue pee for a nice keepsake.

From that point on its all barfing after getting morphine, watching a How It's Made marathon (hot dogs...not the ideal episode on an empty stomach), lots of meds, lots of vitals, and a swift kick out the door at 8 am! All in all, not a bad first surgery experience. I'd sign up for more elective (as in not necessary to save my life) surgeries that have less pain on the back end. What's a nose job feel like?