Day 35: It's been a good day, but I'm exhausted. It's been non stop and you know I don't have the stamina for that these days. So you get my apologies for the delayed update. You know it's bad when you get an email from your mom saying "Go home and post. My phone is ringing off the hook!" When mom speaks.... I better get right to it.
Sally: "So Doc, I have what may be some bad news." (Me scrunching up my face and looking a little sheepish). Thankfully, he lets us get our greetings and niceties out before making me drop my gown. He's grown a bit in his bed side manner now that I've ragged him about it a bit. The very first time I met him he came running in the room like Kramer and went straight for the breast inspection. I never let him live that down.
Lead Plastic Surgeon: "Ut oh, let's hear it."
Sally: "Well you see, there's this spot...." (Surgeon's eyes getting a little wide at this point). So I go ahead and open the gown and show him the troublesome mind consuming spot. Me holding my breath and waiting nervously.
Lead Plastic Surgeon does a full exam of that area and more: "You have a scab." At that point I felt it was safe to exhale and breath normally.
Sally: "So I don't have tissue break down? My skin is safe? Hallelujah, I have been so worried. Best news ever"
Lead Plastic Surgeon: "You must have nicked it and not felt it or maybe it is from the skin rubbing against your tshirt." (See, I'm a good clinician, that was the exact scenario I had laid out as a possibility.).
"BUT, unfortunately, there is another worrisome spot we need to talk about...."
Sept 12, 2012- Day # 35 - Waiting
Day 35: And I sit here waiting for Ron to come pick me up for our appointment. He's not due here until 1 (appointment is at 2:15), but you see I have this spot that's consuming my thoughts. Although, after another glance this morning, I feel almost, sort of, pretty sure, positive that it is just going to be a scab that has formed due to my skin getting chaffed against my clothing. The scar below the spot has a similar appearance. It's going to be nothing...I feel almost sure. = )
It kind of makes sense. Have I described to you yet what this skin feels like? You know when you have sunburn and you can't stand to have anything touch the burned area? That is what my skin has felt like since August 20th when we did the reconstruction. To make matters a little more tricky, for some reason God made us creatures that have a need to inhale and exhale. So every time I breath in (or out) my chest rises and falls and there goes the rubbing of the tshirt over the sunburned skin. The skin gets and stays pretty raw the whole time. Early on it was fairly intolerable. As weeks have passed, it now feels like almost healed sunburn. I asked a few other people if they had this sense of hyper awareness to touch in the boobiage area after recon, but no one has yet reported it back to me.
Maybe I am feeling it because all the nerves where taken out of the boob at mastectomy and now the nerves left behind in the skin have become heightened in sensitivity. It's weird to have heightened feeling in some places, dull feeling in some, and absolutely no feeling at all in others. All in a one foot radius. Phantom limb that is only partially phantom.
Last night, I slept 8 straight hours. (My almost 7 year old niece decided to check in on me with a wake up call early this morning. I can't be mad at her since I don't have kids of my own, and it's imperative I stay on her good side so she will care for me when I am old and feeble. Nursing homes scare me, so I need to ensure she will put me in her penthouse suite). Usually, I toss and turn, up to the bathroom, back to rearrange the pillow throne, sleep a few hours here, up an hour then sleep some more. So 8 hours straight is worthy of a celebration! I think I have turned the sleep corner. And I love me some sleep. Always have- always will. It's been beyond frustrating not having good sleep habits. My friend recently told me that I was keeping tattoo parlor hours this past month with me staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. I very quickly need to fix this with me going back to work on Monday.
Did I say Monday?!?!?! I'm a little freaked out about this. Nothing new to you as I've mentioned it in a few posts, but I am starting to feel the urgency of this. So much to overcome in a few short days. While I can now fully dress myself (Sis, I need a sticker for my sticker chart) it still takes me almost 2 hours start to finish from shower to out the door. And driving, I tire out after about 15 miles, yet I have a 30 minute commute. My arms are not yet ready to commit to a long term relationship with the steering wheel. I've also not driven in rush hour traffic yet. My back detests sitting in a chair for much more than an hour, and I tire out big time come mid afternoon. Then, there is just the issue of readjusting. Some of my coworkers know about this journey. Some of my coworkers only know I'm out. Wonder if they are picturing me in the Caribbean? When I left, I wasn't quite sure how public I wanted to be about this super sensitive topic. Guess I (and God) blew that out of the water with this blog, but still, typing on a screen to people with no faces is a far cry from a one-on-one conversation at the water cooler about Smooth Round High Profile Implants. Where do you draw the line? One benefit of going back to work, my entire day won't be consumed with thoughts of boobs. I'd like to go one hour without thinking once about Impostors. Maybe being back at work will return some normalcy to my life or at least my thoughts, but I imagine the first week or two is going to be super hard on my everything. My psyche of adjusting, my physical stamina, my learning all that I missed (I'm leading a super high paced deadline driven project this year and things change on a weekly basis.) and my reincorporating myself back into all that it used to be. I do know this- I will be a better practitioner in many ways. I've always been good at relating to patients because I've been there myself, but now I have another adventure under my belt so that can only help me as I relate back to the kiddos in my clinic. The best news is I have great coworkers who have been extremely supportive of my journey from every aspect. I really need that.
Ok, so I'm still waiting. Kind of wish I could snap my fingers and the appointment be over with. I detest the poking and prodding (because the boob area is so sensitive), and what I thought was going to be a quick glance over appointment is now shaping up to be a let's dissect this spot to see what is underneath. Pull out the scalpel and scrape. Shallow breathing. Heart palpitations. Dread!
I REALLY need my got-it-all-together-can-tolerate-any-emergency personality back. My friend shed some light on this for me. She used to absolutely adore scary movies. The gore, the fright, the elevated heart rate and even the laughter at the silly parts! After her breast cancer diagnosis, she absolutely can't stand them. They freak her out. They anger her. She very quickly learned that in life, when yours is no longer guaranteed, that there is absolutely nothing entertaining at all about fear. She now understood what is like first hand to be very afraid of something and fear, even as portrayed in a scary movie, was no longer entertaining. I appreciated hearing that perspective. Maybe scars and needles and diagnoses now carry more emotion behind it for me. No longer do I look at your central line catheter and see a catheter, I see a very uncomfortable incision and the emotions behind the need for the catheter. Truthfully, I've always seen that and it made me a good clinician, but it's a bit more heightened right now. I need to reign that in a little so I can function better on clinic days.
Oh, oh, oh! Ron is here to pick me up. Wish me luck! I'll update you later.
It kind of makes sense. Have I described to you yet what this skin feels like? You know when you have sunburn and you can't stand to have anything touch the burned area? That is what my skin has felt like since August 20th when we did the reconstruction. To make matters a little more tricky, for some reason God made us creatures that have a need to inhale and exhale. So every time I breath in (or out) my chest rises and falls and there goes the rubbing of the tshirt over the sunburned skin. The skin gets and stays pretty raw the whole time. Early on it was fairly intolerable. As weeks have passed, it now feels like almost healed sunburn. I asked a few other people if they had this sense of hyper awareness to touch in the boobiage area after recon, but no one has yet reported it back to me.
Maybe I am feeling it because all the nerves where taken out of the boob at mastectomy and now the nerves left behind in the skin have become heightened in sensitivity. It's weird to have heightened feeling in some places, dull feeling in some, and absolutely no feeling at all in others. All in a one foot radius. Phantom limb that is only partially phantom.
Last night, I slept 8 straight hours. (My almost 7 year old niece decided to check in on me with a wake up call early this morning. I can't be mad at her since I don't have kids of my own, and it's imperative I stay on her good side so she will care for me when I am old and feeble. Nursing homes scare me, so I need to ensure she will put me in her penthouse suite). Usually, I toss and turn, up to the bathroom, back to rearrange the pillow throne, sleep a few hours here, up an hour then sleep some more. So 8 hours straight is worthy of a celebration! I think I have turned the sleep corner. And I love me some sleep. Always have- always will. It's been beyond frustrating not having good sleep habits. My friend recently told me that I was keeping tattoo parlor hours this past month with me staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. I very quickly need to fix this with me going back to work on Monday.
Did I say Monday?!?!?! I'm a little freaked out about this. Nothing new to you as I've mentioned it in a few posts, but I am starting to feel the urgency of this. So much to overcome in a few short days. While I can now fully dress myself (Sis, I need a sticker for my sticker chart) it still takes me almost 2 hours start to finish from shower to out the door. And driving, I tire out after about 15 miles, yet I have a 30 minute commute. My arms are not yet ready to commit to a long term relationship with the steering wheel. I've also not driven in rush hour traffic yet. My back detests sitting in a chair for much more than an hour, and I tire out big time come mid afternoon. Then, there is just the issue of readjusting. Some of my coworkers know about this journey. Some of my coworkers only know I'm out. Wonder if they are picturing me in the Caribbean? When I left, I wasn't quite sure how public I wanted to be about this super sensitive topic. Guess I (and God) blew that out of the water with this blog, but still, typing on a screen to people with no faces is a far cry from a one-on-one conversation at the water cooler about Smooth Round High Profile Implants. Where do you draw the line? One benefit of going back to work, my entire day won't be consumed with thoughts of boobs. I'd like to go one hour without thinking once about Impostors. Maybe being back at work will return some normalcy to my life or at least my thoughts, but I imagine the first week or two is going to be super hard on my everything. My psyche of adjusting, my physical stamina, my learning all that I missed (I'm leading a super high paced deadline driven project this year and things change on a weekly basis.) and my reincorporating myself back into all that it used to be. I do know this- I will be a better practitioner in many ways. I've always been good at relating to patients because I've been there myself, but now I have another adventure under my belt so that can only help me as I relate back to the kiddos in my clinic. The best news is I have great coworkers who have been extremely supportive of my journey from every aspect. I really need that.
Ok, so I'm still waiting. Kind of wish I could snap my fingers and the appointment be over with. I detest the poking and prodding (because the boob area is so sensitive), and what I thought was going to be a quick glance over appointment is now shaping up to be a let's dissect this spot to see what is underneath. Pull out the scalpel and scrape. Shallow breathing. Heart palpitations. Dread!
I REALLY need my got-it-all-together-can-tolerate-any-emergency personality back. My friend shed some light on this for me. She used to absolutely adore scary movies. The gore, the fright, the elevated heart rate and even the laughter at the silly parts! After her breast cancer diagnosis, she absolutely can't stand them. They freak her out. They anger her. She very quickly learned that in life, when yours is no longer guaranteed, that there is absolutely nothing entertaining at all about fear. She now understood what is like first hand to be very afraid of something and fear, even as portrayed in a scary movie, was no longer entertaining. I appreciated hearing that perspective. Maybe scars and needles and diagnoses now carry more emotion behind it for me. No longer do I look at your central line catheter and see a catheter, I see a very uncomfortable incision and the emotions behind the need for the catheter. Truthfully, I've always seen that and it made me a good clinician, but it's a bit more heightened right now. I need to reign that in a little so I can function better on clinic days.
Oh, oh, oh! Ron is here to pick me up. Wish me luck! I'll update you later.
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