‹ Back

        One of my students recommended that I watch Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix.  Not only did I watch it, I watched it again, and then again.  And then I watched a couple of National Geographic programs on ancient Egypt.  Needless to say, I’ve been neck-deep in mummies and sarcophaguses and ancient buildings and ancient people for the last week and a half.  I find this ironic because I am currently wrapped up like a mummy.  Well, my chest is.  In fact, they’ve got me wrapped so tightly that I feel like my rib cage is bruising.  Like I was in a car accident.  I have blood grenades hanging out of me, pinned to my wrappings.  They’re not actual grenades, but that’s exactly what they look like.  They’re meant to drain blood and other fluid away from my breast, but it feels like I have a pair of plastic testicles hanging from my abdomen.  

        Friends and family have been amazing this week.  One of my bestest friends brought books for me to read and food for the family the first weekend.  I read one of the books in one day (I recommend it–it’s called We Were Liars).  I started on one of the other novels (How to Stop Time), and it’s really shaping up to be quite interesting!

        Chris’ cousin washed my hair for me.  I can’t take a shower, but I also can’t really lean over a sink either. Or raise my arms above my head.  She works in a salon, so she shampooed my hair for me.  You have no idea how good that felt.  She also brought Roblox gift cards for the twins and lasagna for the family.  When you get a Roblox gift card, they always include a free gift of some sort–like a hat or sunglasses or some other accessory for their Roblox character.  Their free gift this time was a sarcophagus.  I swear to God I can’t make this stuff up.

        I’ve been addicted to "Derry Girls" this week.  It’s a wee show on Netflix, set in Ireland in the 90’s.  My sister and I have been texting each other wee quotes from the show back and forth all week.  It’s kept my mind busy.  If you get a chance to watch it, the final episode shows the character Orla listening to music as she dances through the streets of Ireland.  This is exactly the way that I imagine I look when I jog.  I dance-jog.  God, I can’t wait to be able to dance-jog again.  It’ll be awhile, though.  I can’t exercise for awhile yet, and even when I’m cleared to do so, I’m going to have to minimize jiggling or bouncing of my alien boob. 

        My follow-up appointment with the plastic surgeon can’t come fast enough.  I am dying to unwrap.  I know my plastic testicles will have to stay stuck to my abdomen, but I can’t even imagine the relief of being unwrapped.  I get itchy and uncomfortable when I have to wear a bra for longer than a couple of hours.  This thing has to stay on for a week.  

        My lips have been falling apart.  They must have caught them in the tubing when they intubated me.  The corner of my mouth is all swollen and there’s a cut on my bottom lip.  Feels like I was in a fight.  Whatever that feels like.

        The most uncomfortable stuff, then, is the mouth and the tightly wound wrap.  Well, that’s what I thought.  Then the nerve block wore off somewhere around Tuesday.  That’s when the drain pain came.

Anytime I move (or breathe), it feels like I’m being sliced with a scalpel.  Burning, searing, friggin pain underneath my new boob.  I keep expecting to see the gauze slowly saturate with blood.  But there’s no wetness, no blood.  Just burning searing pain.  My nipple was removed, for the love of God, but I can’t feel that.  Just the drain pain.  And my armpit hurts too.  They removed three lymph nodes, so that accounts for the pit pain, but it’s the weirdest most cringy pain because it’s numb as well.  I can’t touch it because it hurts, but I can’t feel it when I touch it because it’s numb.  Go figure.

        While I was still in surgery, the breast doctor told Chris that two of the three lymph nodes were malignant.  That’s not a good sign.  But we’ll see what my results say when they get the other tissue samples under the microscope.

        Friday morning finally arrives, the morning of my follow-up with the plastic surgeon.  My eldest son is going to drive me to my appointment, which is over an hour away.  If he can stop vomiting.  What?! Of all the days you choose to throw up, you pick my unwrapping day?!  I start panicking–this isn’t an Uberable trip or an ask-your-neighbor type of trip.  This place is over 40 miles away!  Thankfully, he wasn’t running a fever and his stomach did eventually calm down.  He would still be able to do it.  

        I get to my appointment early, just to find out that they’re running late, but that doesn’t bother me.  As long as I’m here, I know I will leave in a zip-front sports bra.  And that’s the end goal.

        The nurses get me into the exam room and explain that the drains are going to have to stay.  That’s fine, I say, I just want to be unwrapped.  They proceed to unwrap me, and the first thing one of the nurses does is start scratching my back.  I’m pretty sure my eyes rolled in the back of my head and I melted right there on the spot.  I couldn’t help but to let out an audible “ahhhhhh” in sheer relief as she ran her fingertips across my back. 

        The nurses said everything looks good–I’m healing nicely.  It was definitely the drain site that was burning–it’s where the drains go into my body.  Any shift makes them sear with pain, but at least I can see the culprit now.  It was awful not knowing what it looked like under there.  And I wouldn’t call it an alien boob right now.  It’s more like a mauled-by-a-bear boob.  Big thick black stitches work their way up the underneath of my breast.  But those don’t hurt.  It’s my armpit and the drain site.

        The appointment doesn’t last very long, which is good because my son stayed in the car waiting for me.  We make it home and I realize my test results from the surgery have populated to MyChart.  They dissected 17 lymph nodes in all, fully removing three.  Lymph node dissection sounds so wrong.  It sounds like they just cut them all up, willy nilly.  Hibachi-style.  No wonder my armpit friggin hurts.

        My doctor originally was confident that the cancer probably hadn’t affected my lymph nodes, but according to my test results, 13 of those fuckers are malignant.  Sheesh.  I’ll find out more on Monday when I have my follow-up appointment with the breast doctor.  I doubt I have time to build my pyramid now.  Anyone know of a good sarcophagus maker?