Under Construction

Wow!  I had no idea what having a major surgery takes out of you.  I had my double mastectomy on Wednesday and all I want to do is sleep.  I know you have missed me so here is a rundown of the hospital stay.

The before art by my PS

Mom and the Twin got here on Tuesday.  Mom landed about 1:30.  I picked her up and brought her back to the apartment.  I finished up my work and we headed to the grocery store to get some snacks and things for the week.  The Twin landed about 7 but had to wait forever for a gate.  Once we were all together we stopped on the way home for dinner at this new place by my house.  The Twin goes to far more happy hours then I do and the evening HH started at 9pm.  She said the $3 wine was a great price.  So we all toasted my boobies on last time and headed home to get some sleep.

Cheers to the boobies!

I had to check in at the hospital at 7:30am.  It wasn't too bad since the hospital is only 13 min down the road.  After stopping at the main check in, we went to the surgical waiting area.  Suzy came and took me back for prep while Mom and the Twin stayed in the waiting room.  Because I was having mastectomies + implants (hopefully) I had to do a nose to toes prep.  This meant swabbing my nose with this gooey stuff, rinsing my mouth with something else and then wiping down my entire body with these big baby wipe like cloths.  It is all to help prevent infection.  Once this was done and she got my IV in, Suzy let Mom and Twin come back to sit with me.  We had a little down time before I had to take a ride to the breast center to have radio active fluid injected in my boob.  They do this right behind the nipple.  It helps the surgeon locate the right lymph nodes to remove during surgery.  After a quick visit from each surgeon and a call to Dad back in PA, it was go time!  

My dream team

The Twin was Snapchatting 

I remember rolling into the OR and then waking up in recovery.   I asked the nurse right away if I had boobs.  She said yes, they were able to put the implants in.  The Plastic Surgeon (PS) stopped at the end of the bed and said I did great.  I hope so, all I had to do was lay there!  The procedure took all of 5 hours.  The PS did tell Mom that I would need a second surgery.  This would be a fat grafting procedure to help fill out my boobs and make them look more natural.  He also said I need to gain a few lbs to do this.  WHAT?  For the first time in my life, I was too skinny for something.  UGH!  

Added a little BCA bling to my hospital arm party.

I got up to my room about 6:30pm.  The nurses were so amazing during my stay.  A gym friend stopped by for a visit and another gym friend was working on a different floor and she stopped by also.  I was so sleepy that I could barely keep my eyes open.  Mom and the Twin left about 8.  I tired to sleep but every time my heart rate dropped below 50 the machine would beep.  So annoying.  After a few round of this, I hit the call button.  The nurse couldn't figure it out.  So this went on and on until 3:30 am when they figured out how to reset the machine to accommodate my lower resting heart rate.  I was finally able to fall asleep and they woke me up at 5:30 to empty my drains.  Back up again at 7:30 for the shift change.  

Hospital selfie

I was even more exhausted on Thursday.  And I also felt so nauseous.  They gave me some meds for that and I tried to sleep it off.  I wasn't able to eat anything until about 4 pm when I got some soup.   The 3 of us ordered room service and watched Greys.  I did eat a good bit of dinner, but we decided it was best if I stayed one more night.  Since I was able to eat, I switched to a pain pill from the liquid, which also meant bye bye to the beeping machines!  I slept so much better on night #2.  I woke up Friday morning and the team had the ball rolling to get me home!  I saw a whole bunch of people, got some goodies and instructions and was ready to go by the time Mom and the Twin arrived.  

Time to go home!

More to come on the first few days at home, but it's time for a nap :)

Family members wearing pink to support me all the way in PA :)