Recovery & Pathology

Recovery is a B!

I stayed overnight at the hospital, and was lucky enough to have an awesome private room at the end of a hallway on a women's only floor.  So, it was nice and quiet and there was even a decent pull-out couch for Jeremy.  My doctor came to check on me at about 9:30pm the day of my surgery, which means she had been at the hospital for 16+ hours. She said she'd return bright and early around 5:30am the next morning to check on me again before she began another day of surgeries.  So, she basically went home for a few hours to sleep.  This is another instance that gave me a new level of respect for doctors.  

Before being discharged, we had a quick check on the baby's heartbeat, which was still nice and strong!  Then, a nurse came in to show Jeremy and I how to take care of my drains, which would be my two new BFF's for the next week, as they would literally be attached to me 24/7.  If you don't enjoy TMI, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

Drains kind of gross me out.  Obviously, their purpose is to collect excess fluid drainage (mostly blood and yellowy stuff and I don't know what else, water?)  You have to manually empty them into a container every so often, which is kind of like squeezing a plastic juice box. You measure and record how much fluid there is on a data sheet (as a behavior analyst, this is exciting stuff!).  Then you have to squeeze your fingers along the drainage tubes to make sure that no clots are stuck along the way.  But, don't pull too hard because you don't want to actually yank the drains out.  I was totally not ready/willing to do this on my own, so Jeremy stepped up to the plate to take on the task as my home health nurse. Super romantic stuff!  He did it without batting an eye. 

Can I take a minute to talk about how clutch Jeremy has been?  From the minute we were presented with this awful news, he's been exactly what I needed him to be.  Not too clingy, not too distant.  Juuuuusssssst right.  He's helped me do all of the everyday tasks that I didn't think I'd need help doing for at least another 50 years:  helping me shower/get dressed/change bandages/reach for my beloved chapstick when it fell on the floor because I couldn't lift my arm, going with me to every appointment, helping me remember which questions to ask the doctors, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, calling or texting all the friends and family who want updates but don't want to bother me, making sure my pillows are in the perfect formation, remembering to feed Charley, talking to Sweet Potato every day, not getting upset if I wake him up in the middle of the night because I just came across some scary statistics on the internet and am now wide awake with fear...the list goes on, but the bottom line is that we're in the middle of living out our wedding vows (..."in sickness and in health") and he is getting an A+.  I don't know what I'd do without his support.

I had home health nurses visit every day, to check the incisions, drains, take vitals, etc. On the first visit, the nurse removed my bandages, which involved about a mile of ace wraps.  I told her that I wasn't ready to look yet and she totally got it so I just stood there bewildered while she checked on everything.  She measured the length of my incision, which is over 8 inches long.  Yowza.  But everything was healing properly and she scheduled another visit for the following day.

My first emotional breakdown post-surgery occurred when our AC decided to stop working the day after we got home.  Ain't nobody got time for heat stroke, or for that matter, a crazy expensive home repair!  So the repair guy came out and fixed it, but shortly thereafter we noticed that the thermostat was creeping up instead of down.  We call the repairman back, but by that time the call was forwarded to an answering service and we'd have to wait until after 11pm.  And the house was 82 degrees.  So, cue the crying spell! Luckily, my parents live 5 minutes away and came to my rescue while Jeremy stayed behind, determined to finish painting the nursery while dripping sweat and waiting for sweet relief to arrive.  Did I mention that he's been the one "nesting" instead of me?  In the end, the AC was fixed and I was able to sleep in my bed that night :)

Jeremy's dad and his wife came to visit over the weekend.  It was great to visit with them, and the guys took some time to put the crib together and fix a few random things around the house.  After 5 days stuck at home, I went on my first "outing" to lunch in Tarpon Springs.  I was feeling ok at first, and we decided to walk around some nearby antique shops.  This is when I started to feel sore and tired, so we decided not to push it and headed home.  

Follow-up with the Surgeon and Pathology Report:

Nine days post-op was my follow-up visit with the surgeon.  Dr. A. was happy with how everything was healing, and decided it was time to take out the drains, which means I'd be able to drive again.  The nurse came in and I was expecting this to be quite unpleasant, but I actually didn't feel a thing.  In fact, most of my underarm (and the back of my upper arm) is now permanently numb; other areas feel permanently bruised.  This definitely takes some getting used but I can live with it.

Now that another pathology report was completed (based on everything the doctor removed in surgery), she was able to confirm the type of cancer I have: Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, which is the most common type of breast cancer.  She also noted that the tumor was 11 centimeters long and 43 lymph nodes were removed, 21 of which were positive for cancer cells.  These stats really took me by surprise.  I've read a lot of "survivor stories" on the internet, and also schooled myself on how stages of cancer are determined, and those numbers seemed significantly higher than anything else I had come across.  Like, significantly. Most people have maybe 3-4 lymph nodes removed, with one testing positive for cancer, or maybe none positive at all. And it seems like most tumors are no more than 5cm.  I know I can't believe everything I read on the internet, and every case is different, but my numbers seem like they break a record that I have no interest in breaking.  But, the one piece of positivity that came out of this report is that the margins were clear.  This means that the perimeter around the entire area that was removed did not show any signs of cancer cells, meaning it's less likely that cells crossed over the area into other parts of my body.  

I also tested ER+, which means that my cancer cells responded to the estrogen and progesterone in my body, causing them to grow more quickly (and holy sh-- they grew quickly). The good news is that there are some hormone therapy wonder drugs out there that can address this.  It involves taking a daily pill for the next 5-10 years, and is supposed to significantly decrease the recurrence rate.  I tested negative for the HER-2 protein.  This is a good thing, because if I were positive, I'd have to take a certain chemo drug that wouldn't be safe for the baby.  My sister is HER-2 positive, and has already started her chemo (2 treatments down, 4 to go!)

So, this definitely puts me in the "Stage 3" category ("Stage 4" indicates that cancer has spread beyond the lymph nodes to other parts of the body, and thankfully, this has not been the case for me so far).  FINGERS CROSSED.  This is another reason why I try not to over-do the Google searching.  When you look up 5-year survival rates for the different stages of breast cancer, it's a true reality check.  Here's the general breakdown, according to the American Cancer Society:

Stage 0:  100% 

Stage 1:  100%

Stage 2:  93%

Stage 3:  72%

Stage 4:  22%

I admit that I've struggled between trying to find a balance between being well-informed about my situation, but also not overloading myself with facts and figures that only cause me to worry.  I think of my Sweet Potato and am reminded that stress and anxiety doesn't do him any good.  There's something to be said about the power of positive thinking!