As of July 10th 2015, I'm Declared Cancer Free

It’s been about a week and a half from my bilateral mastectomy. I was told that this part was easier than chemo, but for me so far it has not been. My vision has been blurry and my eyes have been dilated since surgery. I think because of this my equilibrium is off and it’s causing me quite a bit of nausea. I thought the nausea was because of my pain medicine but I decided to take a break from the medicine so the nausea would subside and it did not. The pain from the mastectomies is pretty bad. My chest feels very tight and spasms a lot, plus at times it feels like I am having a heart attack, plus the skin itches from the sutures and then it is also sore and itchy from the drains. The ironic thing is before I had cancer I had a really high tolerance from pain, but as each procedure happens and the more I get poked, cut, pinched, etc. my body seems to be getting more sensitive to the pain.  I will be seeing my plastic surgeon again in a few days at which time he will probably remove my last two drains and fill my expanders a bit. The last time I saw him and he removed 2 of my drains it hurt pretty bad and that was with me taking a pain pill before my appointment. I plan on taking something a bit stronger fir my next appointment, fingers crossed that it will keep me from feeling pain.

As of July 10th, 2015 my oncologist has declared me cancer free. When I went to see her yesterday she went over the pathology report of my bilateral mastectomy. The only breast that had cancer was the left breast and the tumor had gone from 6cm to 1.8cm due to chemo and they were able to remove all the cancer with the surgery and they believe that they had gotten all the lymph nodes with cancer when they did my original centennial node biopsy. If there is any remaining cancer that they missed will be killed during radiation, but as of now all of my margins are clear. I know this is wonderful news and I am happy but I don’t think it has all sunk in yet. Probably because even though I am cancer free I am still in the thick of it. I am still recovering from my bi-lateral mastectomy from 2 weeks ago and am about to have to undergo some painful office procedures in order to reconstruct my chest. My hair is finally growing back but is sparse and crazy like so I am in one of many to come awkward hair stages. I am very eager to get my last two drains out and start feeling better so I can begin exercising again. Due to complications from chemo and surgeries I have pretty much been inactive for the past 6 months and it’s driving me crazy.

UGH!!!!! I am so tired of being nauseous! My chest is so sore and would love to take some pain medicine but I have been so nauseous because of the surgery which I was told could last weeks and then when I try to take anything stronger than Tylenol forget it I am stuck in bed barely able to lift my head because I feel so sick and dizzy. I went to get my first fill up on my expanders Monday and I was supposed to get my last 2 drains out but I have to leave them in for another week. I am getting stir crazy but I feel too sore to do anything. I really think this part may actually be worse than the chemo with the exception of the hospital stays from chemo side effects.

It has been 3 ½ weeks since surgery and my nausea has finally subsided, yay, of course I haven’t taken any pain medicine in a week. I am going to the Dr. tomorrow to have my last 2 drains removed and 2nd fill up to my expanders I plan on taking 5 mg of Percocet beforehand so hopefully the nausea has been from surgery and not medication and I will not feel sick tomorrow…fingers crossed.  I still think the surgery and after effects have been the worse part of the cancer treatments so far. I kind of wish I would have known beforehand but then again I am glad I didn’t otherwise I would have been freaking out beforehand. I suppose maybe this is why everyone plays up the surgery from the doctors to the nurses as not that big of a deal.  Well I hope I don’t scare anyone out there reading this that might have to go through the same thing. Everyone’s experience is different and a lot of people aren’t quite as sensitive to medicines as I am so they don’t seem to have the issues I have. What can I say I am a delicate flower who has been able to withstand large amounts of pain.

On another note I saw this video today that I wanted to share.