To be honest to start with all i was nervous about on the day was the fact that they would have to try and find a vein to put me to sleep. I had a great anatheasologist (again with the bad spelling sorry!) who listened to me and didn't attempt to dig around and find a vein and i was so grateful for that because everyone else up to that point had stuffed me around and it really put my mind at ease.
I woke up with the morphine drip and another central line in. I was going to have to have antiobiotics for a few days so they needed to have access to my veins. To begin with I wasn't in too much pain but it was just the fact that there were 2 drains on either side of me, my back was sore and so was my chest so that didn't really leave much that was comfortable at the time!
The first thing i remember is how sore my back was. I kept thinking this for a few days, especially where my bottom left side drain was and i couldn't really understand why it was so sore there as i thought that my scars on my back were a lot higher and smaller than how they felt. It wasn't until the second or third day when my doctor was changing my dressings and mat was in the room and he saw for the first time what they looked like that we realised why i was so sore. Mat actually said 'oh shit' when he first took the dressings off because he wasn't expecting it either.
The first photo below is the one that he took for me so i could see what he was talking about. Because i have a small back they couldn't do it across my bra line (which is where i thought they were going to take the skin/muscle from). The second is to show you the drains hanging from the side of the bed (there were 2 on each sides).
The picture on the left is one day after the surgery and the second photo is only on the third day. The dressings were put back on but i was really suprised at how clean they were immediately after the surgery.
The hardest part is getting used to the fact that you have a foreign object on your chest. It hurts to even try and sit up right because you have the expanders on your chest wall that move slightly and its really uncomfortable. I'm used to them now but at the start it was really uncomfortable.
A few tips for anyone about to go through the same thing -
- Don't be a pushover when it comes to the nurses. Most of mine were absolutely lovely but that wasn't the point! I wish i was a bit tougher at times. The first day i had a catheta (spelling again, i know!) in but then they took it out and wouldn't let me get up to go to the toilet yet so for 2 days i had to use a bed pan and there were quite a few occassions where they left me sitting on it for a while and i was in pain trying to hold myself up, waiting for them to come back. Be tough and if this happens to you, next time make sure that you ask them to stay in the room or whatever you need to do to make sure this doesn't happen to you because it sucks!
- When you first get out of surgery and you have the morphine drip use it the minute you feel pain. I was a bit stubborn to start with and had a lot more pain than i should have if i'd used the drip as much as i should have.
- The same thing applies for when they take you off the morphine drip. Don't let the pain get out of control because it may take hours to get it under control again. I remember asking for pain relief one time and the nurse didn't come and give it to me for over an hour and by the time she came i was in so much pain that i was crying and rocking from the pain. It then took me the next few hours of being like this until it got under control again. It's hard though you don't want to sound like a drugo asking for more medication (that's how i felt anyway) but if you need it, you need, there's no if's or but's about it.
- They will give you some tablets to make sure you don't get constipated but don't take them if you don't need them. These are the tablets that you can refuse if you don't need them. Otherwise if you just take them anyway you'll end up with a sore stomach and will be on the toilet a lot more than you need to be which is not good because every time you get up you have to put your drains in a bag (all 4 of them!) and getting up in painful for the first week at least!
- Get plenty of rest. Thankgod for visiting hours. The first few days i fell asleep all the time and you need to just let your body do it when it needs to.
- Try and move around as much as you can. Don't push yourself too much but if you can, get up and use the toilet and have a shower as soon as you're feeling up to it and try and walk around the hospital (even if it's just to the end of the hall) whenever your feeling strong enough but also make sure that you have someone there to hold onto just in case. I used to go out the front with Mat when he'd come and visit and getting that little bit of sun when i was feeling strong enough was wonderful and really lifted my spirits. There was a few times that I went outside though and pushed myself a bit too far though so just be careful.
Here's a photo that mat took on one of those occassions where i couldn't even stand long enough to wait for the lift! It's the worst photo i've ever had and i look like i'm at death's door but really it's just that my blood pressure was playing up and i pushed myself just a bit too much.
The other photo above was taken when i just got home from hospital. The normal recovery time is 7-10 days and generally you can go home as soon as your dr can take the last 2 drains out (when the fluid gets down to 30ml). For the first 4 days i was on track with everything and my fluid seemed to be reducing so i was hopeful that i would come home after about 8 days but my nurse noticed a red spot on my left breast and although it was red already from the radiotherapy, it was getting worse. So from there i went downhill. The drain on my left side stopped working and the fluid was building up inside and it caused an infection. The good thing was that my breasts were healing fantastic but my back wasn't.
There was a build up of fluid on the right side of my back as well (which you can see in the photo above) but that was normal and went away after about 6 weeks (it was pretty grose to touch actually cause it was like a waterbed and all squishy) but the fluid on my left side (where my drain had stopped working) needed to come out and it ended up finding its way out via my scar. It was leaking that much that i had to have the bags put on (photo above) to catch all of the fluid and it added about 2-3 weeks to my recovery. So instead of being in hospital for 7-10 days i was stuck in there for 14 days and only got home on Christmas eve because i pushed the dr to let me go. I wasn't going to spend christmas eve in hospital on my own when i had a 2 year old at home waiting for Santa.
The recovery at home was pretty hard. You find yourself doing a lot more when you get home and although everyone tells you not to do anything when you get home, its not really practical. Macy still needed her nappies changed and her clothes washed etc so i had no choice really. Mat was lucky enough to get a week off work when i was in hospital and i really wanted him to spend as much time as he could with Macy while i was in there but she ended up spending a lot of time at his aunties house (she loves it there) so that he could be with me. I think we both really needed each other. He hated to see me like i was and i hated being away from both of them and lets be honest hospital is a really boring place for kids so he brought macy up to see me twice and she was going crazy after only an hour each time so although i missed her like crazy, it wasn't practical to have her up there (as well as the 1 hour trip up and back to the hospital).
Here's some photos of my back scars, 8 months after. I've definately seen better scars on others but oh well. My surgeon said he might be able to revise the one on my left side at my next surgery so hopefully he can.
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