The registrar and SHO arrived about 9.30 this morning to tell me that the their leader would be around after lunch, but was busy operating at another hospital... The drain is still draining, and the dressings were all looking a bit manky. The amount of blood in the drain, as well as my consistently low blood pressure, meant that they want to examine my haemoglobin levels and such like... So after they left the nice nurse came and investigated the dressings, of which there seemed to be about five layers, all stuck together with a bit of blood and a lot of sticking plaster (or rather the modern replacement). She cleaned it all up and I got to see my newly relocated nipple for the first time - actually it looks exactly as it did, albeit with a scar all round now. It's all pretty numb, not just the nipple but the whole boob, most of my upper arm and quite a lot of my shoulder. I am assured that the sensation will come back as the bruising goes down and the swellings subside - I jolly well hope so!
One of our lovely Breast Care Nurses also came to visit this morning, which was nice, and she said that it was time for me to start doing the recommended post-operative exercises as outlined here... It all looks a bit trivial on their information leaflet. The first one is effectively "shrug your shoulders seven times"... OK, can manage that. Then "lock your fingers together in front of you and bring your arms up level with your shoulders - seven times". That was a bit more taxing... then "put your fingers on your shoulders with your elbows pointing forward, lift elbows level with shoulders - seven times"... Hmm, this was actually pretty hard work! I have to say that it was as much as I could do to get through the set... but hopefully repeating these regularly will improve the circulation and flexibility quickly. Lovely Breast Care Nurse came also said that exercise bikes would be a good idea to improve general fitness, and that walking (even on a treadmill) would be good all round, getting upper body movement going, but that the cross-trainer would probably be a Very Bad Idea... After a week of the cross-trainer I am inclined to agree with her!
The Great Man arrived just after lunch (mushroom soup - mmm) and pronounced that he was happy with the progress so far, but was less happy with the amount of fluid coming out of the side of me... There's no way the drain is coming out for at least a couple of days, he's thinking I might be out of here Thursday (THURSDAY!?!?!) all being well. Actually when pressed he thought Wednesday might be feasible, in fact he will push the lab for the histology report on the tissue he chopped out so that he can get those in time for their Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting on Wednesday morning so that he can come and see me in the afternoon, discuss the next phase and then let me go home. That sounds like a plan... So I then had to faff around finding numbers for the insurance company to ring them and let them know that I would be in here for a couple of days longer than planned. The nice lady there was most amused that I was worried enough to call them immediately - "We're not about to tell them to throw you out after the three days originally planned, you know! You just get better and I will talk to the hospital direct, don't worry about us!" So Customer Service brownie points to an insurance company beginning with A who are based in the county town of Norfolk.
Happy nurse has just brought me the afternoon drug instalment - confused me completely by replacing the little round orange tablet with a slightly bigger triangular white one... but they are exactly the same thing from different manufacturers. Proved I was checking though!
Before he left, the Great Man put my little discomforts into perspective. He will be round to see me after lunch tomorrow - in the morning he's doing a bilateral mastectomy. That means that some poor woman either has cancer in both boobs, or has discovered that she has the BRCA-2 gene, which means she has an 80% chance of developing breast cancer, so is having her breasts removed as a precaution. That must be a really awful decision to make - at least all my decisions were easy and obvious, not having the treatment was not an option!
Dear Husband arrived on way home from work, all tired and worn out, bless him... bearing fruit & nut chocolate and emery boards to tidy up my battered split thumbnail. He left with most of my book stash and a list of things to bring back in the morning... I sent him packing fairly quickly as he looked all in, poor lad. He's eaten all the flapjacks and most of the bread, will be reduced to buying such things if I am in here much longer - I am not really a domestic goddess but I have managed to provide bread for his lunch recently and I feel quite bad that my stay in here will be longer than the supply of bread I put in place!
My right arm is a bit swollen and puffy - I am hoping that this is just a result of the trauma from the operation and not a sign of long-term lymphoedema... my biggest fear at the moment is that, once it sets in it never goes and I have had two-thirds of the nodes removed on that side, so there is a risk... they say it's a 20% risk, so hopefully I will be lucky, but I have got off so lightly with other bits of the treatment so far that fate might just be saving this one up for me! Fingers crossed, eh?
Think it's time to see if I can get my head around the Duchess Eleanor again, since all the nice fluffy novels are finished and gone...
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