I thought this was going to be a breeze!!

   As a worker in the medical field, I see it all.  I see the patients that come in very sick and leave with a smile because they're doing much better than expected, then I see the patients that come in and are as healthy as can be and have such drama with their stay.  From the get-go, I've had a plan.  I've had a time line and I've had certain expectations.  I'm not sure why I did this because I know better, I know that things don't always go as planned when involving medical issues.  Boy, to say the least, it's been a pretty crazy roller coaster since surgery!!
   I had forgotten a small part in my last blog that I meant to write about and completely forgot. Hmmmm, imagine that?? lol  So, remember I said that I was basically trying to pull all my clothes off post op cause I was so stinkin HOT??  Yeah, it didn't stop.  When I finally woke up, post op like a billion hours later, I was ON FIRE!!! I had the room temp set at like 60 AND I had this huge fan that was constantly blowing on me.  Pretty sure it was the North Pole up in there.  Everyone left with frost bite. During all my visitations that I had, the egg doctor came by (several times, actually, to check on me... seriously, how nice was that??) and noticed that everyone had their parka's on and there I was, ice pack in hand, fan on, eating ice, trying to keep as little clothing on as I possibly could, room temp was at 60.  I said, "Man, it's hot in here". He gives me this shruggy, squinty eye look like a shy little boy and says, "Yeah, that's my fault." Well, how about we fix this little problem?  He says, "Dana, it's all the hormone shots you had a week ago."  Well, yipee, these hot flashes have still not ceased, only decreased, since then! lol
   After a few days of being discharged home, I started having these HORRIFIC pains in my left boobie area!  Off to Dr. Plastic surgeon we go!  I couldn't even walk it hurt so bad!  I was having muscle spasms from the tissue expanders!!!  Got some muscle relaxers and by the end of the day, I was smiling again!!!!  No more pain faces!!! :)
   Alright, so post op in the hospital after the mastectomy, I came out with four drains, JP drains, in my breasties.  There were two on each side of my body, located pretty directly under each arm pit.  They are just small drains that have a very big job!  These guys drain all the fluid out of my body that, if left in there, could become quite dangerous.  Sometimes these little drains can cause weird issues to happen, like becoming a little short of breath or not allowing the patient to breathe in and out fully.  Not a big deal, right?  Once they are removed, all typically goes back to norm.  I go home, feeling ridiculously great, and notice that for the next few days, I am just not able to take complete breaths.  I just blew it off to the drains being placed where they were.  I had no high heart rate, no shortness of breath, no pain, basically no symptoms at all.  *Here we go with all the personal stuff, so watch out!!*  Well, about six days post op, I had not gone, well you know, potty. (My face is red as I type this, however, due to me being in the medical field, it just is what it is!!) Well, when you have anesthesia, it puts you whole entire body to sleep and quite frequently, the tummy is the very last thing that wakes up, thus causing these issues.  Being on narcotics, i.e my morphine pump- which just so happened to be my bff while I was in the hospital, also slows the tummy down big time.  I was just concerned that this was going to cause me an issue, so Dr. General Surgeon and Dr. Plastic Surgeon had called me this particualr day to check up on me since I had been home.  I told them my situation, they gave me their solution. Oh my sweet baby Jesus!!!! I followed their specific instructions and guess what? It landed me in the ER with doubled over pain and some serious tears and frantic actions!  Thank goodness sister was at home with me that day and bless her little heart for trying to help me calm down! I had never in my life felt pain in my abdomen like I did this day.  I thought something SERIOUS was wrong!! Sister calls mom at work, mom says take her to the ER, I'm crying in the background, "I'm not going to the ER, I don't wanna go to the ER".  Lordie, I didn't know what I was saying because I DID need to go to the ER. Off we go, me gagging and crying and whimpering THE WHOLE WAY. OMG at the look on my sister's face this whole drive.  Had I been with it, it would have been a great picture opportunity.  lol Anyways, I get to the ER and my tummy completely stops hurting and all of a sudden, I get this over all body uncomfort.  I didn't hurt in just one spot, it was like I just felt like crap ALL OVER MY WHOLE BODY!  Back to a holding room I go.  I'm grouchy as ever, snapping at my poor mom and sister, to which I apoligized for later!! :)  I couldn't lay flat on the stretcher, I couldn't sit up, I couldn't lay on my side, I couldn't get comfortable AT ALL.  My heart rate was in the high 160s, blood pressure elevated. What the heck??? I was so confused. I thought, ok, something just ain't right here!!! I was just wimpering and constantly wiggling around in that bed, making all sorts of horrible faces.  Mom and sister both tried to calm me down, and yes mom brought out the mommy voice! lol  The nurses came in and were so sweet.  They were trying to make me comfortable, but nothing was working.  The ER doc ordered a CT with contrast of my abdomen to see what the heck was going on in there.  Order of elimination, right?? So, they bring the contrast, of which I gladly drink because of two things... 1. It's gonna help me get this scan to see what the deal is in the belly and 2. (Ear muffs!!) It ALWAYS gets those bowels moving and you're usually in business about 10 minutes after you finish it.  Guess what? It was a deal breaker for me!! OMG!! Before the CT scan, they decide to FINALLY (after being there almost an hour!!) give me some Dilaudid (I'll get to the narcotic story later) so that my pain level decreased. I was currently sitting at a 1000000 on a pain scale of 1 to 10. For real, I needed drugs, IMMEDIATELY!!! lol  I calm down tremendously after the Dilaudid and can kinda begin to maneuver around a little bit.  They decide that they're gonna do a abdominal xray prior to doing the CT.  Well, because I couldn't lay flat in the bed, I had to sit at an incline when they took the xray.  THANK GOD I DID!!! The ER doc came back in and said, "Well, the bottom lobes of your lungs just so happen to show up in your abdominal chest xray and Mrs. Clark, you have a pneumothorax." Well crap.  I know immediately what that means, I look at mom and sister and explain to them that I've got a collapsed lung! My post op xray was clear, so not too sure where this pneumo came from?  They call the ambulance to take me to the hospital because I was at our off site ER, which is fantastic btw!!  I complete my CT before I leave and off I go with the ambulance peeps.  These guys couldn't have been nicer either!  The driver looked at me right before we left and said, "I swear to not hit any bumps on the way!!"  All I could do was smile and clinch my little stretcher seat belt cause I was still in quite a bit of pain.  I get to the hospital's ER and my mother, being the mother that she is, has already called Dr. General Surgeon and Dr. Plastic Surgeon to tell them what was going on.  Plastic Surgeon was out of town, but General Surgeon just so happened to be at home. (Thank goodness cause he was leaving the next day to go out of town as well!!)  My heart rate was still high, but the pain meds were working! I was placed on a non rebreather, which is basically constant air so I could assist my lung that wasn't working properly.  This dr that I had never met before comes in and basically tells me that we are gonna hafta place a chest tube and blah, blah, blah.  All I heard was "chest tube".  I knew that my surgeon wasn't on call, so he wouldn't be the one doing it.  Now, I've been around the hospital long enough that I've seen lots of different procedures done.  CHEST TUBE PLACEMENT SUCKS!  It can be extremely painful because all they basically do is give you something to numb the skin, then they have to insert this extremely long tube into your lung area. Yeah, I wasn't excited about that!! One of my besties, who just so happens to be INCREDIBLY SMART (Thank you Mary!!!) saw on fb that I was on my way to the ER with a pneumo, so she met us in the ER.  Thank goodness she was up there to kinda help guide us, the girl that was on serious narcs and her family that had no clue exactly what was going on! lol  Apparently one of our pulmonologists had also found out what was gonig on and was giving Mary specific instructions to tell the ER doc.  I'm not sure what I did to deserve all of this care and concern, but at that moment, I couldn't be more greatful!  I was freakin out because here sat a dr that I could barely understand and he was just going to wait for the MD on call to come in a place this torture device in my lung. OMG I'm gonna just go ahead and pass out now!!! Out of the blue, in walks Dr. General Surgeon! My face lit up like the Griswolds house at Chrsitmas and the biggest burst of tears just came flowing.  Mom asked why I was crying and I said, "I'm just happy Dr. General Surgeon is here because I know he will sedate me if he needs to put my chest tube in!!!" lol  Seriously, that's ALL I was worried about, feeling that dang thing being inserted!! He was so dang nice, he told me he was going to send me to IMU for the night and place me on oxygen.  If the pneumo didn't fix itself, I was to go to radiology and have the chest tube placed under fluroscopy.  YAHOO DANA!!!! I could relax!! Off to the 6th floor we went.  I was pretty darn excited about being on 6 as well because my besties work on that floor and I knew I was going to be taken care of better than ever!  When I got up to the room, the night nurses, whom I had never met before, came in and said, "We know all about you and we promise that we will keep you comfortable and get this fixed!!" I've never seen more nurses working together, so hard to take care of a patient and their family.  Apparently my besties, that work day shift on 6, had all called these nurses and explained to them that they'd need to take really good care of me until they could get there and take care of me themselves the next day. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!!!!!!!  They were calling their fellow nurses and giving them all the details and telling them what they needed to do with me.  To me, it was the MOST priceless situation EVER!!!  Those night nurses came in and said, "ALL of your best friends have been calling us and have been making plans for you!!" SUCH a relief!!! I have the most bestest, sweetest, caring and awesome friends EVER!!!!!!  And did I mention that they're smart??? and that I LOVE THEM VERY MUCH?!?!?!?!
   The next day comes around, chest xray shows I still have a 20% pneumothorax... Guess who is going to get her very first chest tube?? My friend from radiology called me right before I went down and said, "Dana, I just want you to know that we are gonna sedate you for this." Best news I had heard in 24 hours!!! "And we are going to use a pig tail catheter", even better because it's actually smaller than the insertion part of a chest tube!! WIN WIN for ME!!!  I get down to radiology and all my friends down there are busy at work, trying to get me on the table.  Hugs and kisses from my family and off we go!  My friend, Julie, was so sweet!! She gave me my meds and just held my hand through the whole procedure.  (How do I know this?  Because I woke up a few times during the procedure.  Didn't feel a thing, HOWEVER, I did hear the dr saying, "Ugh, I can't get it" and hear him making noises of frustration.)  Julie is still holding my hand and I'm off to la la land again.  This time, I have a dream.  I had never met this particular physician before, however, I dreamed that I was taking beer and putting it in a cooler and we were going to the lake to have a beer now that he had successfully placed my chest tube.  OMG really??? Who dreams crap like that??? I can just see myself dragging my chest tube and my IV pole down to the lake with a cooler to celebrate this chest tube placement!  Whatever!!!! lol I woke up, was quite confused, but off to my room I went.  When I got back to my room, mom told me that the dr had come to talk to her and told her that was one of the hardest chest tubes he had ever had to place.  Seriously, what is with me???  I'm NEVER a complicated girl, so why this mess??  That must have been the result of my waking up and hearing him say, "Ugh, I can't get it", along with a few body moving thrusts I revieved when he was trying to lodge the tube through my ribs!! The person that invented sedation drugs needs a prize, btw!!!
   I have a new found appreciation and sympathy for my patients that have chest tubes post op.  I'm always compassionate, but wow that thing was uncomfortable.  It's like it was trying to poke out through the back of my ribs, so every time I laid down, I had to squirm around in the bed to try to get comfortable.  It was just such a weird feeling!!! I COULD BREATHE!!!!!!!!!!!! Yipee!!!  I ended up keeping the chest tube for a few days, just to make sure that my lungs were completely fixed!!  We were rockin and rollin at this point!!!  I was up in bed, visiting and giggling and just feeling so much better!  (BTW, the moral of this story is always listen to your mom... she ALWAYS knows best, even if she is at work and can't lay her eyes on you... she knows that desperate cry!!! Thank goodness she forced me to go to the ER!!)  Still had not fixed the tummy problem, but I didn't care at this point!!  I ended up staying in the hospital a total of four days, I believe.  Again, it helps to have low friends in high places people!  My day shift nurses for the next two days were Amanda and Shelley, two VERY special friends!  Secretly, I think they planned that so that it was them, my friends, taking care of me! :)  These two worked SO INCREDIBLY hard taking care of me.  I see these girls pretty much on a daily basis and I know that they are both outstanding nurses, but for me, they will never know the blessings they were to me.  I never had to ask for anything, they were both on top of all my meds and docs and basically everyone that stepped foot into that room!! :)  I can't thank them enough for taking SUCH good care of me while I was there!!!  They both went over and beyond their duties those days!!  My mom and sister absolutely fell in love with both of them, it was REALLY sweet to watch!!
   Mkay, so the chest tube issue is taken care of.  Back to the narcotic issues... I AM ALLERGIC TO EVERY DANG THING!  Really???  What else??  Vicodin, Codeine, Percocet, etc!! Rashes, hives, ITCHING OUT OF CONTROL, sweats, MISERY!!!  As a matter of fact, even several rounds of Benadryl wasn't cutting some of these side effects, so I was just having to wait it out until I could get something else to try!  I looked at my mom and told her I thought I was kinda a crap magnet (a term loosely used in the hospital setting!! lol) and that I just couldn't catch a break!!!!  Finally, I just went on a Dilaudid pain pump, which was lovely!! :)  Still had side effects, but they were by far decreased from all the other side effects!!  Man, I was up, moving around, sitting up in bed, chatting, visiting, LAUGHING!!! :)  I was hyper off the pain meds and exhausted all at the same time!! So many people were coming in to visit, which made me SOOOO very happy!!!!  I figured that if these kind people were sweet enough to take time out of their day to come and visit, then I needed to be awake and visit with them.  Plus, lets face it, who doesn't like all of their friends to come in and hang out?  At one point, each day, the nurses would put a sign on my door and say No Visitors.  I heard through the rumor mill that even a few docs that came by were re directed and told to come back later!  It made me sad cause I wanted to be kind to everyone, but THANK GOD those girls did that so we could get some sleep!!!! :)  It was just a steady influx of friends and family and I was loving every minute of the visitation!!!  So, the doors closed and it was quiet time.  Yeah, well, here's the deal... these narcs can make a light weight girl feel REALLLLYYYY good!!!  I noticed, several times, that I would just randomly fall asleep at the weirdest times.  For instance...  during nap time, I decided I was going to get out of the bed and sit in the recliner for a nap.  Mom was asleep on the couch and sister had crashed in my bed.  All was peacefull and snoring... A friend of mine had brought these adorable GET WELL zebra colored cookies to the room (Thanks Deanna!!! ).  I wanted one.  I opened the crunchy clear plastic bag covering the cookies on a stick, stuck my hand in and apparently fell asleep because when I woke up, hmmmm there was my hand, in the bag of cookies.  No one else saw that, right??? :)  Randomly, I would be asleep and then just wake up talking loudly to whomever would listen.  I would wake up saying stuff like, "Well Cindy, I'm just not sure what you should do" or "Samantha, it's on the chair".  WOAH NELLIE!!!  First, I don't know anyone named Samantha or Cindy.  Second, WHO DOES THIS JUNK???  I would look around the room to make sure no one was sitting in the corner, making fun of me!!! No such luck!  My sister got a video of me eating Strawberry Shortcake for dessert.  I took a bite, closed my eyes, chewed slowly.  Grabbed another bite, fell asleep with the fork and bite right by my mouth.  Woke up a little later and continue eating.  Talk about being wigged out!!!  I was scaring myself, but apparently I was a comical blunder to my family.  After the short cake issue, I looked over at mom and sister, so seriously, and they both gave me these raised eye brows and big eyes look like OMG girl, take another pain pill cause you're entertaining!!!! 

Here are the super cute cookies that stole my hand while I took a little baby nap!!! :)

 

   So, I felt better and it was time to pull the chest tube out.  Yet another nervous moment for me.  I've seen these tubes be pulled and some people scream and wanna punch the doc and others are just tough and suck it up.  Pulmonologist comes in and says, "Hey, grab those side rails right, have your mom help hold your hand, take in a deep breath and hold and say Eeeeeeeee.  Ready, 1...2...3..."  That man needs a prize for making me say Eeeeee because had I not said that, I may have let out a slight scream.  It NEVER hurt, at all, but it did feel like he was trying to pull my lungs, along with my spleen and pancreas out! WOW!  Such a strange feeling, but it was over in 3 seconds flat!  I was curious, so I looked over at the catheter and thought, "oh my gosh!! How could something so small cause such discomfort???"  It was crazy, but I was more than happy to get that thing pulled out!!  It was just me and the four drains going home!!!  I had such a great farewell from the hospital, lots of hugs and kisses!!!  My friend's little girl even rode down in the wheelchair with me.  She wanted to pretend that her little hand was broken, so she wore this blue glove and made me hold her hand in the air the whole ride down.  Cracking me up!!
   I get home, all is well, got some Dilaudid to take at home and another pain med that wasn't a nactotic and I was feeling GREAT!!! :)  Up and down and up and down and up and down!!!  This WAS NOT part of my plan!!!  I didn't make room for all of these "road blocks" to occurr!  However, they have all panned out, thus far, as being treatable and fixable!! :)  God has absolutely taken the very best care of me!!!  His grace and mercy and kindness have just surrounded me like no other and have kept me safe and have, slowly but surely, healed me.  I just don't think it's patience that He is trying to teach me here...  I'm SUCH a patient person, direct and timely, but patient!!  I tend to be laid back and easy going, so I'm going to have to keep waiting to see what the lesson was there??? He and I may need to have a talk about this?? lol
  Ok, I think I've exhausted my time here now!!  It's about 5 am and I've only slept two hours!  I'm gonna try to catch some sleep... TRY!!!!!  I have so much more to write about, but just can't sit in the same position for too terribly long!!  (Since when did I become 84 years old??) GAH!!! lol

Love you all and thanks for reading!!! :)  It always makes me happy when I hear my friends say these blogs made them laugh!!  These situations have just turned out to be quite comical and for that, I am SO THANKFUL!!!  If I couldn't sit and laugh about these situations, I would cry every day and then the next place you guys would be coming to visit me would be in the nice padded room... Hmmm!!! *We may ALL consider joining this facility... Just sayin'*  :)

And yes, after diligent try after try after try of everything AND I DO MEAN EVERYTHING to get my insides to start working, we finally got the abdominal issue taken care of!! (Snicker, snicker, snicker...)

SURGERY! I did better than I expected!!

                                            Here's a picture of part of my pre op party!!!


Hello everyone!!! :)  I'm so sorry it's taken me SO long to blog, but O. M. G. a heck of a lot has been going on!!!  I'm going to say right now, I'm going to be very open and honest and detailed in these next few blogs.  I debated on being detailed with personal stuff or not, but since this blog will be something that I will print and keep for myself, I don't want to miss any details for when I look back and read this in 10 years.  And for those of you that are my friends now, you already know that I'm basically an open book and what's on my mind is usually what comes out of my mouth!! :)
  Ok, so lets start off with right before surgery.  I was EXTREMELY proud of myself the few days prior to surgery.  I had convinced myself that the 3-5 days prior were just normal days and that I had no reason to be nervous. (In all reality, I thought I was going to be a basket case, having anxiety out of control and puking every five minutes!!) I had already decided that I would most likely need an Ativan to help calm myself since I had NO CLUE what to expect with surgery, especially one of this magnitude!!  I had surgery on Aug. 16th and decided that I would work until the day before, which was great because it sure did keep me busy!  (To my co-workers-- I apologize now for not even knowing how to complete any task at work during this time!! Thanks for letting me just zone out that day!!!) My last day of work was very sweet, to say the least.   All of our patients knew that I would be taking medical leave and since I see them so often, they were pretty curious as to what was going on.  They were so sweet and so supportive when they found out about the c word.  Tons and tons of hugs and words of encouragement were what they offered me.  (Funny story- after surgery a few of my patients actually came up and saw me while I was still an in patient in the hospital.  I was laughing because they were kidding me about our roles being reversed.  They said, "Ummm, Dana, when we were in the hospital and all hooked up to these IVs and monitors and tubes and drains you MADE us get up and walk.  Now it's your turn...GET UP!!!!! So cute are they!!!) Anyways, back to pre surgery.  I'm not sure why I was this way, but I was actually so very calm.  Now listen up... we all know that even if we pray for peace, we still end up with off and on anxiety.  I'm here to tell you, I HAD NONE!!! Thank God!!!!!  I never had to take Ativan!!! YAY!  I got all my stuff packed and ready for the hospital, made the girls a goodie bag to keep them occupied and so they could have snacks and not hafta leave the OR waiting room.  (I was trying to keep myself busy until bedtime...) Finally took my shower and got ready for bed.  When I registered at the hospital, the pre admin RN gave me these sterile wipes that I had to use the night before I had surgery.  After I took my shower, I opened the pack and used them.  You basically have to give yourself another bath with these things, minus the washing off part, so you can help with infection a little better during surgery.  La La La, I wipe myself down, head to toe, with these things.  Five minutes later, FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!! Holy crapola, I've never in my life burned like I did after I used these things!  I couldn't even breathe they itched and stung so bad!  I should have known because I'm allergic to so much... I tried to just hang and let it do its job... 15 minutes later I'm back in the shower scrubbing that junk off of me!  I just couldn't deal with it!  I was just gonna hafta say an extra prayer for infection. UGH!!!!!! 
   After my crisis, I got in the bed and watched a little TV, then dozed off.  Around 1 that am, I felt an extra person in my bed.  It was sister.  Bless her heart, I could hear her sniffling and could feel her trying to be quiet and cry.  She just wanted to come get in bed with me... that child slept with me the rest of the night and no matter where I moved in the bed, she was touching me and wouldn't let it be any other way. So sweet!!! I woke the next morning before my alarm went off and I checked my fb.  Yahoo at all the sweet messages that were on there from my awesome friends!!! I smiled...until... I had seen that a sweet friend of mine, who shall remain nameless (TAMRA NORRIS!!!)  made this precious slide show with pics of me and all my hospital besties that had been taken throughout the years.  She had added the song, I'm Gonna Love You Through It to the slide show. Seriously, my face was flooded with wetness!!!!  I had the biggest smile on my face while looking at all the fun pictures.  Every memory raced back through my head and it made me happy, yet I couldn't quit crying!  (Apparently this is how my sister ended up in my bed at 1am... she saw the video too. And I have since spoken with several of my friends who also saw the video and their reaction to it was the same.  Ha Ha)  So, I get up and try to stop my tears, but I just can't.  I saw my mom in the bathroom and just wailed out!  She held me tight as I basically told her I just didn't wanna do this!!! I didn't wanna go have surgery that morning... I didn't wanna be sick... I didn't wanna hafta face the next year of my life being changed so drastically... I didn't wanna hafta carry around this weird feeling any longer... I didn't wanna hafta go through such a harsh recovery, afterall, I work in the medical field, I know what it takes to recover from something like this and it's so difficult.  I knew I could handle all of this, I knew I had the strength to complete this task, I knew I had enough support to push me through every single bit of this, I knew I had the peace and grace and mercy of my God that was going to push me through this every single step of the way, yet I just wanted to walk away.  I had a weak moment that overpowered my every move.  I couldn't breathe because I knew that as soon as I rolled into that OR, it all really started.  I knew in my head that when I woke up from surgery, all I was going to face was treatment after treatment after treatment.  I knew that after surgery I was going to have to become extremely strong and fight like I've never fought in my life.  I was scared, I was intimidated, I was broken!!  We all got dressed and took a moment to sit on the couch and pray together as a family.  At that moment, my mother looked at me with the most serious eyes I've probably ever seen her have and she said, "Dana, I need you to do your best during surgery.  I need you to be strong and fight while you're in there."  Well, that's all I needed to hear because at that moment, my whole entire attitude and feelings changed.  I became so incredibly strong at that moment and felt such a peace.  I hugged mom and whispered in her ear, "I promise mom, I promise with everything I have and I love you."  I had the biggest smile as I walked out my front door.  I knew it was all going to be ok.  We got to the hospital and started walking towards the elevators to go to the OR and I ran into one of my besties whom I work with, Melissa.  She gave me a huge smile and I noticed she had on her "In The Pink" shirt and all kinds of pink accessories.  OMG seriously, I hugged her so big because at that moment it hit me... Wow, I have some of the most amazing and awesome people in my life and I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, but man I'm so thankful!!! I said, "Melissa, you're so sweet, you wore your pink today." Her reply... "Dana, we are all wearing pink for you today."  Until you were in my shoes at that exact moment, you will have no clue how that touched my heart.  I can't even begin to tell you how my heart raced and how I had tons of butterflies in my tummy because I was so excited to know that they were doing that for ME!  How cool is this???  I mean, seriously, the feeling of such support is indescribable!!!  Ok, moving on.  We get to the OR waiting room and check in.  One of the ladies I have worked with for several years is the waiting room RN that keeps all the families informed of how their loved ones are doing during surgery.  I saw her and I explained to her that my mom was going to need some serious updates during my surgery, so she promised to work double time while I was in there, updating mom and sister more often than normal.  That sweet lady did just that for those girls!!!  They were SOOOOO thankful to her for her kindness that day.  What an awesome blessing she is!!  I go back to pre op and meet with the RN, who I've also known for several years.  (This is pretty much rocking for me BTW because knowing everyone that's working on you makes you a BILLION times less nervous!!!)  He gets me ready, puts me in this horribly awful, sweat your butt off, heated gown of which I had to ask for the air in the gown to be turned on... that thing was nuts! He started my IV, got all my bands on and called my anesthesiologist in to come talk to me.  Super nice anesthesiologist!!  He and I had a little chat about how I like to puke with anesthesia so he promised me he would drug me good, he also promised that he would make sure that I had plenty of pain meds on board post op so that I wouldn't feel a thing! Yay Dana!!! (I've heard horror stories about post op, so I did the whole beg thing prior to!!)  I was all settled in and then the girls came back.  We sat for maybe 5 seconds and I hear all kinds of laughter... Here came the troops!!! My friends from Nuclear medicine were all up there, dressed in their pink, to bring me my injection for the sentinal node biopsy that Dr. General Surgeon was going to do.  It was party time!!!! OMG at the laughter in that room.  Shortly after, my cardiac rehab co-workers joined in, making it an even bigger party!!!  There were probably 15 people in my room and I was loving every dang minute of it.  The pre op RN was taking pictures for us and being so kind!!!  In walked Dr. General Surgeon... he said, "Oh my, man this is the party room.  You guys are having so much fun in here and I think it's wonderful!!!"  He had come up to give me my injection and before everyone could leave the room, he said, "Wait, I want everyone in this room to stop.  All of you join hands and we are going to stop and take a moment and pray." LOVE HIM!  He held my hand for a very long time, even after he finished praying, looked me in my little sad eyeballs and promised me that he was going to do his very best in there and that he would take very good care of me. Ahhhhh, a sigh of relief.  I got lots of really good hugs and kisses from all my friends, then it was just me, mom sister and the surgeon.  He needed to give me my injection so he could complete the biopsy on my sentinal nodes during surgery.  He preceeded this injection with, "Now Dana, most women say this is the worst part of everything... They say it hurts and it burns really bad."  Well dr, I used to like you, now I'm not so sure.  Ha Ha He was having to inject my boob directly with radioactive material and I was first in line!  It didn't hurt AT ALL!!!  I smiled and he said, "Well, I'm glad this is your reaction!!" It just felt like a little sting, not bad at all.  Then, Dr Plastic Surgeon came in with his purple marker.  Draw, draw, mark, mark.  He outlined my boobs and I said, um, is that so you know where to put them back on?  He assured me that he was also going to do his best operating on me that day as well and that he would take very good care of me while we were in there.  It was hugs and kisses time, the OR team had arrived to carry me back.  BIG HUGE HUGS did I get from mom and sister with lots of I Love You's.  Mom was trying really hard to keep it together, but I knew better.  I knew as soon as she couldn't have eye contact with me any longer, she was gonna break.  That was hard for me to watch... I gave her those "I promise" eyes and smiled.  It was just me and the OR team.  Tugging, pulling, capping, rushing... next thing I know, the CRNA leans over and says, "Dana, I'm going to give you this medicine that's gonna help you relax a little." Relax my butt... that crap knocked me out in 5 seconds flat, no joke!!  My sweet friend, Dianna, who is a RT at the hospital had stayed with me during all of this because I didn't know any of the OR team and I wanted her there to help me not be nervous and stay with me and hold my hand until I fell asleep.  What a sweet friend she is!!!  She did just that for me!!!! :)  She said that after I got my "sleepy meds" I was loopy and was just smiling and being sweet and that I was kinda reaching for her, but I couldn't focus and find her.  (I had NO CLUE I did any of this!!)  She was sweet and went and reported to my mom after I was out that all was well and I was doing fine, but that I was in dream land!!! 
   SURGERY, SURGERY, SURGERY... I was told that my surgery lasted around 4 hours and that it went extremely well.  Dr. General Surgeon came out and reported to my family that my anatomy inside isn't symmetrical, meaning that the left side of my body doesn't exactly match the right side of my body.  This might drive me crazy in my head now knowing this because I am SUCH a symmetrical person!!!  Surgeon tried to place my port for chemo on the right side of my body, but couldn't due to the anatomy situation.  He told them he placed it on the left and that it was just fine.  He said all went well with the breast tissue removal and that he had removed lumpie!!  OH YEAH BABY!!! LUMPIE IS G*O*N*E!!!!!!!!!  A few hours later, Dr. Plastic Surgeon came out and said he was done and that I had done very well with the tissue expander placement.  He said that my pec muscles were so great that he ended up filling each expander with 50cc's of fluid rather than the normal 20 that he would do.  He said it was very rare that one's pecs were that good... YAY ME!!!  Must be all that lifting and holding patients at work that I do??? Ha Ha  Off to recovery I go... not remembering any of this, of course.  I was told after that I was trying to take off all my gown and blankets while I was in recovery... Hmmmmm  Ha Ha  They told me that I was so hot post op they had to put the cooler on my gown instead of the heater, which is odd because normal post op, post anesthesia reaction is chills from being so cold.  I had to stay in recovery a little longer because I was told that I just didn't wanna wake up!!  Give me sleepy medicine and I'm gonna sleep... HELLO!!! :)  They took me to my room... I was still sleeping.  I did wake up and grunt and say a few words when someone was turning me from side to side in my bed.  It HURT like no body's business!!!  I just had both boobs removed, I had painful tissue expanders in and I had two drains coming out of each boob, HECK YEAH IT WAS GONNA HURT!  Everyone tells me that after hours and hours of EVERYONE trying to wake me up, it just wasn't working!  Mom was asking all of my nursing friends to try because she was worried about me.  She said she just needed to see me open my eyes and talk a little.  I was REALLY enjoying those meds and that quiet, peaceful, tender sleep!!  During all of this commotion, the ONLY thing I remember was my friend, Gwen, giving me some water.  How funny is that?  Out of hours of shaking, commanding, poking, etc. the only thing I remember was her giving me some water for my mouth on a sponge!!!  After everyone left, mom got serious!!!  She got the mommy voice out.  She sternly told me several times that I needed to wake up and sit up.  She said I finally replied, with my eyes closed and a sad face, "Momma, I'm trying to!!!"  A few more commands to get up and before I knew it, I was sitting up and eating gold fish and morphine!!! YUMMY!!!!!  That only lasted about a half hour, I was soon back to sleep!! :)  I woke the next day feeling very well, actually.  I was very surprised that I was feeling and doing as well as I was.  I know, morphine works wonders, but I really felt great honestly!!!  The day went by, I had a crazy amount of visitors that made me SOOOOO excited and happy!!! I was eating and drinking and walking around in my room a little, which I knew was great!!  Not bragging, BUT... ha ha Everyone that came and visited me said I looked like I didn't even have surgery.  They said my color was great and I was up movin' and groovin'!!  In all honesty, I really did feel extremely well!!  (Minus the slight allergic reaction I was having to morphine... Nothing a little benadryl didn't take care of though!!)  And let me say this, Thank you soooooo much to all of you that sent or brought me flowers.  My whole entire room was FILLED with such beautiful flowers!!!  I counted 12 arrangement when we brought them all home!  It was so awesome to wake up and see all the pretty flowers and balloons and candy and cookies and sweet notes (That were left for me while I was having my post op anesthesia nap!!).  I just felt SO very loved!!!!
   Alright... now to serious business.  The night after my surgery, my night RN came in and needed to change my bandage.  This girl couldn't have been any kinder.  It was just she and mom and I in the room.  She came in and turned the big lights off, turned the bathroom light on and got all her bandage stuff ready.  She asked me if I was ready to see my boobs, I said yes.  Mom sat down next to me and kinda rubbed my arm to let me know it was gonna be ok.  The sweet nurse got very close to me and very slowly and calmly and sweetly un velcroed my bandage bra that I had on.  She asked me if I was ok, I said yes and smiled.  I was ready to see the goods!! :)  She took off the puffy layers and layers of bandage slowly and used a saline flush to help unstick the parts that were stuck on there!! My jaw dropped and I had the biggest smile on my face.  My breasties looked FABULOUS!  I had BOOBS!!!!!!!  Dr. Plastic Surgeon did a OMG GREAT job!!  These things looked pretty dang real!  They were a little lumpy, they had incisions, a small part of them were black due to not enough blood flow and oxygen to the area of skin, but they really looked fantastic!  I was proudly showing them to everyone that asked... :)  They all thought they looked great as well.  I think I was just expecting baby bump boobies with lots of cuts and just not very pretty.  They were everything but that...  I couldn't have been happier!!!  The fact that they looked so real has absolutely helped me psychologically.  I was actually able to keep all of my "boob skin", all they took out were the insides, so when I saw that my boobs were only about half the size that they originally were, I never gave it a second though that my insides were fake now.  Given all of this, it helped me be happier in my recovery start!!
  I stayed in the hospital one more day, I was given the all clear from Dr. Plastic Surgeon and home I went!!!! :)  The start of my recovery was nothing less than off to a good start!  I wasn't miserable, I wasn't in bad pain, I was doing GREAT....... until...... I got home and took my pain meds- Vicodin. Never have taken vicodin before, but apparently I'm quite allergic.  Whelps, itches, hives, misery... Benadryl to the rescue!!  So guess what??? Because I'm allergic to vicodin, this means I'm allergic to codeine based meds.  My new pain med I was given was NOT a narcotic-  just a higher powered non narcotic drug, Tramadol.  I pretty much had to just deal with the pain, which to be honest, wasn't horrible.  I was given a muscle relaxer as well, which really helped!! :)  Here's the awesome part of this-  since they cut all the "guts" out of my breasties, this means that they cut nerves as well.  Since the nerves have been cut, this means that I have no feeling in my lady lumps.  In return, this means that I have NO INCISION PAIN! How awesome is that??????  No burning, no itching, nothing! So cool!!  The pain actually comes from the tissue expanders and the stretching of the chest muscle (the tissue expanders are placed under this muscle).  The muscle basically comes from under my arm pit, and all over my whole chest.  It's quite a large area and it is painful, especially since just moving your wrists, walking, getting up and down, turning your head left to right, EVERYTHING involves some type of movement using your chest muscle.  No Bueno!!!  It's ok though, I just dealt with the pain and all was ok!!  There were no tears, so I thought I was on the up and up!!
   Alright, I have many more stories to tell you, but these tissue expanders are getting quite uncomfortable while I'm sitting here typing!  I'm going to call it a night and go get some sleep!! 

I know I always end my blogs saying thank you for all the prayers and encouragement, but now more than ever do I mean, THANK YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH for the concern, the cards that have been sent, the sweet messages you've left on my fb, the texts, the calls, the flowers, etc.  You all are making this so much more easier for me!!  Without any doubts AT ALL, I'm only doing this good because of all of your prayers and encouragement!!  Much, much love and thanks to you all!  Love you!!!