Tag Archives: Breast

Celebrate the Drains are Gone – 15 days post-Breast Cancer surgery

24 Wednesday Sep 2008

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“Take Care of Your Body means Have a Nice Day”

And on the 15th day, we all sighed relief.  This morning we went into the hospital and had the drains removed.  They used Hurri-Caine spray to numb the area.  The nurse told my wife to breath deeply and as she breathed out the nurse pulled the drains.  First the right and then the troublesome left.  They were 6 inches in length each inside her and resembled long flat extension cords with little holes that the blood entered.  OIn the left side we saw that they were clogged and thus why we had leakage.

My wife said it truly is a relief.  She already seems like a new woman.  The laughing and giggling have started again.  She is still feeling small soreness and discomfort, but when asked to gauge her pain from a 1-10 (high), she said it was a 1.  This afternoon we took the first big step.  I had her drive to our kid’s school and back to pick up our son. She did it like an old lday with some soreness, but it made me feel good that she was able to accomplish this on her own. 

Ironically we ran into her surgeon at Starbucks on our way to the school.  She was surprised to see us out of context and glad to hear we were driving again.  “Just stay off the highways” she said.  Those in our neighborhood including the Principal’s wife were surprised and happy to see my wife behind the wheel again.  In fact, we are feeling guilty about all the meas we are still getting from our wonderful class parents.  I found that the other family which lost their mother to cancer is also getting meals prepared by the other families in our school.  How wonderfully blessed we are to be in such a wonderful community.

One of the funny things we all do is pick up the quirks of our parents and pass them on.  As my father was a physician and worked for the Department of Public Health in San Francisco during the height of the AIDs epidemic he used to always write notes and messages to us in our lunch boxes, birthday cards, etc.  They never said, “Have a Nice Day” or “We Love you”, or anything like that.  They always said, “Take Care of Your body”.  These notes continued onto college and even when ending a phone call. It was like the show “Hill St. Blues where the captain would say, “Hey…Let’s Be careful Out There”.

Dring my dad’s final months, we lived with him and I’m fortunate my children really got to know their grandfather.  One of the things they picked up was his silly phrase.  In honor of him we continue that phrase every morning.  The other day as I kissed my daughter and she ran off to class, she yelled “Take care of your body Daddy!”  A teacher heard the exchange and laughed.  I could only shrug my shoulders and smile.  The phrase was still embarrassing, yet so very important to our family.

As i mentioned, our life is one long race over hurdles and so linear that we just focus on the next task.  The next task is to deal with the expanders and the discomfort that will come as the expander pushes on the chest muscle over the next 2-3 weeks.

Tomorrow she beigns to spread her wings.

Two weeks post-surgery and it’s all about pain management

24 Wednesday Sep 2008

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“Peace begins with you”

Stats: Drain emission: 20ccs on the left 15ccs on the right

Well today is about tomorrow.  The drains get taken out and there will be a great liberating experience for her.  Right now I don’t think I want to be in there when it happens.  It might send shivers up my spine. Maybe I’ll just put a magazine up to my face.   I know though that she will take half a Vicodin and hopefully not be in too much pain.  If that goes well, she should be able to operate “heavy machinery” by Thursday.

For me it will help me in body, mind and soul.  I’ve lost 10 pounds from this ordeal and I’ve cut my exercising way down.  The nervous energy and lack of sleep has been taking its toll on me.  I really hit back into the work groove next week with travel and a speaking engagement at a conference (oh yeah, I need to write that speech).

Tonight was back to school night for our daughter.  The teachers are very aware of breast cancer and proudly displayed their “Susan G. Komen” Race for the Cure shirts from this past weekend.  My wife is the class mom this year but couldn’t attend.  The moms aware of my wife’s situation understood but interestingly enough nobody else asked where she was.  Each girl leaves a message on the desk for their parents.  This year’s theme, “Peace begins with you”.  Our daughter wrote, “Peace begins with mom.”

These days it sure does.  And tomorrow mom will sure have some peace when those drains are removed.

Route53

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Two weeks post-surgery and it's all about pain management

24 Wednesday Sep 2008

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“Peace begins with you”

Stats: Drain emission: 20ccs on the left 15ccs on the right

Well today is about tomorrow.  The drains get taken out and there will be a great liberating experience for her.  Right now I don’t think I want to be in there when it happens.  It might send shivers up my spine. Maybe I’ll just put a magazine up to my face.   I know though that she will take half a Vicodin and hopefully not be in too much pain.  If that goes well, she should be able to operate “heavy machinery” by Thursday.

For me it will help me in body, mind and soul.  I’ve lost 10 pounds from this ordeal and I’ve cut my exercising way down.  The nervous energy and lack of sleep has been taking its toll on me.  I really hit back into the work groove next week with travel and a speaking engagement at a conference (oh yeah, I need to write that speech).

Tonight was back to school night for our daughter.  The teachers are very aware of breast cancer and proudly displayed their “Susan G. Komen” Race for the Cure shirts from this past weekend.  My wife is the class mom this year but couldn’t attend.  The moms aware of my wife’s situation understood but interestingly enough nobody else asked where she was.  Each girl leaves a message on the desk for their parents.  This year’s theme, “Peace begins with you”.  Our daughter wrote, “Peace begins with mom.”

These days it sure does.  And tomorrow mom will sure have some peace when those drains are removed.

Route53

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Almost 2 Weeks Post Surgery – A Loving Fight with Breast Cancer

22 Monday Sep 2008

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“Mom, You’re the MVP”

Ugh, they say that after two weeks you can drive and that after two weeks you get your drains out.  Well tomorrow is two weeks and we are on the brink.  It was Monday and I just couldn’t leave her a home.  I worked from home today in case she could get another appointment with the nurse.  The drain on her left side was causing problems again.  The drain was not keeping its pressure and was leaking again.  The gright side, the one with cancer, was draining fine and is now consistently under 20ccs.  Can we pull it out?

We got an appointment in the afternoon,  and took her in.  They replaced the drainage bulb on the left side and rebandaged her.  The nurse said that the right side looked okay and that we didn’t need to do anything.  We could come back Tuesday and remove the right, but the left side probably should stay in for another 2 days.  Ugh, we can’t come back to more days in a row,  We’ll just have to wait until Wednesday to have both drains removed.  She told us to take half a Vicodin before and then keep a half for later.  I hope it doesn’t hurt her that much.

Today after school when picking up our kid, our some came home with the class MVP award.  Something that designates our son as the leader of his 3rd grade class for the week.  He even gets a medal that says MVP.  He handed it to his mom without hesitation as soon as he saw her. “You’re the MVP mom, I don’t need to wear this.”

We sat in the front seat and touched hands.  Our son sat in the back as we drove to the hospital again for the 13th time in the past 60 days.  We are definitely fortunate.  This morning on the way to school I saw one of the other dads in the class.  It must  be one of his good days.  He’s been battling cancer in the pancreas and his brain for the past 4 years.  Yes, we are fortunate and we can’t forget it.

Well tomorrow is two weeks post-curgery.  it doesn’t look like tit will be eventful, but we’ll see.

2nd weekend after Breast cancer surgery – A Linear Life

21 Sunday Sep 2008

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“My life seems so simple yet so complex”

Going into the weekend, life seemed normal post-surgery.  We had just had a meeting with the plastic surgeon, we were ahead of sechedul and there seemed to be no complications.  Saturday morning we awoke to a “bloody mess”.    Blood in the sheets and her drains seemed to be emitting so much more fluid.  “Perhaps we knicked a blood vessel yesterday!”, no big deal was what we were told.  Bandages had to be replaced by me and it was still leaking so we went in to the hospital get this fixed.  All this on kid’s soccer morning!  Stress 101!

Well the doctor was on call and she patched us up.  A small hematoma had been looking for a place to drain and found it’s spot.  Yechhhh!  Well I guess things could have been worse, but at least we were now patched up and could live our SIMPLE but cancer-affected life the rest of the weekend.  Our kids?  They just thought it was one of the many follow-up appointments and it seemed to roll right off their backs.  Soccer Saturday stress was averted.

THE DRAINS!  They seemed to be our focus right now.  Cancer has a way of doing that to you.  At first it’s dealing with the diagnosis, then it is the waiting, then it is the surgery, now its the discomfort of the drains.  There are tons of other things going on in her life and you have to find ways to take her attention off those uncomfortable subject matters.  For me this has been the most difficult one.  It is just difficult visually to look at.  “My life seems so simple, yet so complex.  I take pills, I empty these lousy drains and I rest.  The rest of it just revolves around me.  Chemotherapy is sounding like a nice change of pace.”  Comments like that from her help me understand what she is going through.  She’s in pain.  she’s hurting, and she’s bored.  I really understand what she feels and it’s killing me to see her go through this.  Yes, this linear life has changed her.  It’s focused her.  It’s focused us. 

The new goal for now: Get these darned drains taken out!  Did we say goals?  We need to go back to the old posting about our goals and change them here.  We just never envisioned these drains being so painful.  Still emitting around 35ccs per side, so we are almost down to the magical 30ccs.

5 More Days with Drains – Post Breast Cancer Surgery

19 Friday Sep 2008

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“It ain’t over til it’s over”

Well today was our post -op visit with the plastic surgeon.  We did learn that an initial 150ccs were inserted and he put in another 100 today.  If chemo is needed he will likely be almost done with everything before then. 

It was the first time I’d seen him smile too.  We got to know him a little more as he fixed her dressings again and injected more fluid.  Luckily they gave us more bandages because the nurse did not apply the dressings appropriately and my wife was leaking vascular fluid.  When I got home, my wife asked me to reapply the gauze and bandages.  This was actually the toughest job yet.  We had just hit the weekend and hopefully I did it right or someone would have to take my wife back in this weekend.  It was frankly a little too close  for me.

We still were not ready to remove the drains and they recommended keeping them in another 5 days. Ugggh.  I saw the sadness in her eyes.  I know they are uncomfortable for her and when they tried to push the date to next Friday I knew we had to fight for a Wednesday appointment.  I guess the fighting isn’t done yet.  It ain’t over til its over I told her.  She apologized that I still had to drive her everywhere and I told her no apology was necessary.  How anyone does this alone is just brutal,  She needs to be able to get out and become mobile again and I know she is getting antsy.  The drains are definitely not pleasant to look at for sure and cannot be that comfortable.

We at least have our next three appointments settled for the plastic surgeon, the removal of the drains, and the initial meeting with our oncologist who is supposedly one of the best nationally so we feel very fortunate that she is able to take our case.

Other than the darned trains and discomfort she is feeling okay after today’s procedure.  i guess that is easy for me to say, but I’m sure going to be glad when the coming week is over.  I know she is thinking the same thing.

Another Good Day – Our First Look after Breast Cancer

18 Thursday Sep 2008

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“Walk, don’t run. Listen, don’t talk”

Day 9 after the surgery and we had our first visit with the breast surgeon and the head nurse.  Since it was only my wife who had received the pathology news over the phone, it was good for me to hear her voice and discussthe outcome.  She was very upbeat and happy to report that she believes they caught it early although she will want to go in again and remove more tissue as she believes that the tumor was a little too close to the skin for her comfort.

Although she said she’d leave it up to the oncologist, she says that there is a possibility that they might recommend some chemotherapy treatment.  That would start early October but we’d need to get a genetic test back first as well as have an initial meeting with the oncologist.  We set the appointment today for 3 weeks from now.  I took very diligent notes as we listened.

While we waited in the room for the surgeon to come in, my wife made a comment to me about her surgery that shocked me.  My wife mentioned a slight procedure that she thought was made that I had no idea about. I told her that I never was told what she thought happened was going to happen.  This was a major deal.  Well I was right, it did not happen.  My normally solid wife was totally wrong, but what scared me most was that she had been assuming something else was going to happen in surgery that didn’t happen.  I can’t go into detail, but it was like being told that you were going to have a simple bypass surgery but actually got a quadruple bypass surgery.  She was quite relieved to be wrong, but I was definitely seeing how her mind was not there.  One more reason why every cancer pateint should have someone go to appointments with them to take notes.  I reminded her that she needed to listen better and always ask for clarification when unsure.  We both have a lot on our minds these days and while small details might be forgotten, it is definitely not good to go into a surgery thinking the docotr is going to do one thing and find out that they did another.  Even the doctor looked a little puzzled when my wife asked about that part. 

Well the big relief was actually seeing the dressings taken off and replaced with clean ones.  We were both worried about being overwhelmed by a sight that we couldn’t handle and asked around if people thought we should look.  I didn’t want my wife to look by herself and get depressed.  I wanted to be there.  Well as we both covered our eyes as they changed the dressings, I was asking the doctor some questions.  When she moved, I caught a glimpse.  My wife saw me stop talking and noticed I was staring.

It wasn’t anywhere near what we thought it would be or look like. Again we were quite relieved and everyone had a good laugh.  Although there was some black and blue bruising, you can tell that a nice job was done.  My wife later said it was nice to see her”girls” were still there.  I guess the analog I had been giving my son of a flat tire was pretty accurate, but that the tire was completely deflated.  On the way home we had a good little tearful hug and I got a big thank you for being there.  It was a tough appointment made very easy.

The drains and her chest pain is starting to become bothersome.  I reminded her that she needed to rest.  Walk, don’t run.  The more rest she gets, the less fluid drains and the faster she will get those drains out.  They didn’t take the drains out today but they might take them out tomorrow.  That would be very nice but it is still a little hard to tell.  The appointment is first thing in the morning, but I’m guessing we’ll need to come back next week to have them removed.

Tomorrow – seeing the plastic surgeon again.

Keeping a Good Woman Down – 8 days post Breast Cancer Mastectomy

17 Wednesday Sep 2008

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“Lay Low, people might think you are back to normal”

My wife’s drains are down to about 30ccs a day and it really varies based upon the amount of movement she has in a day.  She has been getting antsy and everyone keeps remarking how they are amazed to be seeing her sending tons of emails as always.  I also seem to be getting more phone calls from my wife who is supposed to be laying in bed and resting.  She spent one day talking on the phone for 3 hours and her drainage went up. 

Today I came home to find her having taken out all the trash, done a couple loads of laundry and sent out bunches of emails as well as watered all the flowers that she had received.  I told her if she didn’t cut it out I was going to tell everyone she was fine and they didn’t need to send meals or help anymore.  They say it’s hard to keep a good man down.  It’s worse with women.  I say that kiddingly of course.  She’s just itching to get out.  I pampered her tonight with another bathing.  It’s our alone time after the kids go to sleep.  Yep, just lean her back over the tub and give her a long shampoo and conditioning.  I could see her finally relaxing and just closing her eyes.  Yep, that’s how you keep a good woman down.

She’s still worried a little about losing hair from chemo but some friends have mentioned a shampoo that is supposed to help you not lose your hair.  Me, I’m concerned about her bandages and being afraid to look at ther chest.  We’re also wondering about that first bill that is going to come.   Our plan pays 90% of the bill but that will still leave us with a large bill to pay.  Now they are asking if we would like an ONCA which judges your possibility of recurrence.  The problem is that insurance pays very little of this $3500 test.  All I know is that my MIL had this surgery 25 years ago and is still cancer free.  That’s a good enough test for me, but it is her decision.

Tomorrow is the visit with the breast surgeon and she’ll go over the pathology report with us.  She’ll also recommend an oncologist for us.

Tonight we had our first family game night in a couple weeks and the kids really enjoyed it.  We forget how sensitive they are and we need to maintain our focus and keep them engaged  I told my wife that the kids are the main healing point for us and they are picking up on every vibe we give them.

Courage and Connectedness – One week after the mastectomy

16 Tuesday Sep 2008

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“It’s all about Courage and Connectedness”

One week after the surgery and we are slowly getting back to a semi-routine.  I am taking the kids to school and either I or someone else picks up the kids.  Someone drops in during the mid-day to check on her and in the evening to make sure she is okay at dinner.

Well we got the call today.  I’m not sure if we got the call we were expecting.  I guess things are never just black or white.  The news we wanted to hear is that her nodes both came back negative.  The joy in my wife’s voice was great to hear.  The doctor did say the margins were close and that perhaps we might want to do some follow-up after speaking with the oncologist.  My wife was still upbeat, but I felt like that still was not the perfect news in my eyes.  It was the first time my heart sunk.  Is she still going to need chemo?  Maybe.  Maybe just a light dosage.  I’m disappointed in myself for not being as upbeat as her.  I guess after all these months of trying to be positive, I let my guard down.

All in all though, we are still on schedule and we are thankful.  We still have the strength to carry on.

Tonight was our son’s Back to School Night in which they told us this year’s theme was about Courage and Connectedness.  The courage to try new things and face new challenges.  The ability to connect with others and stay together through tough times.  The words of the Principal almost choked me up as I sat there without my wife.  I felt like he knew that I was thinking those exact things.  We are having to have the courage to face each day anew and to face each challenge with the courage to carry on for our children.  The connectedness with our community has been so wonderful from the encouraging words to the pre-prepared meals.  We wonder what we did to deserve such kindness and help.  We really do feel so lucky compared to those who need more and don’t have such a great support network.

I even have to thank all the wonderful women and their spouses on breastcancer.org.  They’ve been so supportive and helpful and I’ve learned so much from them.  They’ve provided us with so much more information that we’d never have known to ask for.

Well, that’s it.  One week later.  Still holding at about 35ccs per drain and hoping that these drains will come out at the end of the week.  Oh that would be a nice treat.

6 days later – Trying to resume activities (training wheels)

15 Monday Sep 2008

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” I am superwoman” – Alicia Keys

Drain check – 30ccs one side, 40 ccs the other

Today was the first day back to a normal routine or as normal as we can have it.  I went back to work and took the kids to school (normally she does that).  I still got to work early and tried to bury myself back into a routine.  It was hard not to think about my wife alone at home.  I left her with everything she needed at a low level and poured out heavy items into smaller containers.  Shwe was fine and said it felt good to be independent.

My mother stopped by to help her with lunch and the kids were picked up afterschool for playdates.  We had an old family friend come by to help with dinner and getting the kids ready for dinner and get their homework done.  it was an exhausting day for her and she admitted to being lonely and having tears in reading all the well-wishing emails.  Unfortunately I had a late night meeting  but stopped in or called several times to check in with her.  I drove her car to work today and the CD was set to Alicia Keys singing “I am superwoman”.  My wife had been playing that over and over again in the car to psyche herself up prior to surgery.

I am hoping that on Thursday she’ll also be able to get her drains removed.  That will help allow her to drive again.  We’ll probably let her test her mobility on the weekend and see how comfortable she feels.

Today was a bit of a training wheels day for all of us.  Could she handle being alone.  Could I get my mind back on work?  Would the kids be thrown for a loop with a change in the schedule?  I don’t think we passed with flying colors.  We’ve bonded so well as a family over the past several weeks that being apart was hard for us and the kids.

It might be a little too early to try and get back to normal, but we will try.  We aren’t ready to take off the training wheels.  And that’s okay.