We got sent home yesterday. Having the chest tube out of my left flank improved the pain issue quite a lot. It left me with a small apical pneumothorax, but I had that last time and it resolved. I could tell my nurse wanted me to consider staying another night but I did get better sleep last night than I did in the hospital. He wanted me to feel safe about a pleural effusion not coming back. I'm not gonna feel fine about that for probably a month.
They did send me out with a JP drain, which may get pulled today. If there's any doubt that it's putting out more than 30cc over 24 hours, I'll keep it another day, and get it out myself tomorrow.
My kidneys are working energetically (they dumped a lot of fluid in me intra-op), my gut is needing to be coaxed to wake up. Pain is not as bad as the first surgery. I can get out of bed by myself, for one, and I'm doing okay movin around. I need to stretch my chest out more, and it doesn't feel good to do this.
I've got new scars on my chest, a smiling line under my left breast now, clockwise up to my sternum. The left side is pretty bruised, and theres' a matching purple bruise on the left arm. It's not too horrible. I can only pull 750cc on my incentive spirometer, and can't sleep on my left, but I can sleep on my back and my right. Some more walking at home on the track should help a huge amount for those things. Chest stretches, which hurt a lot but will help with all my fancy scars.
I guess what happened to the ribs is that they had fractured, and begun to knit together underneath the bar. There's no doubt this needed to be fixed with surgery. The hardware looks a little like a bike chain on the CXR; it's longer than I expected. I'll upload when I have all the imaging. She actually didn't do plating with the cartilage. She cut it in places, and then tied it with fiber wire to the bars. I was a little loopy and craning my neck to see that when she was going through it in the hospital, so today I should have a better understanding of what was cut where. It is possible, but not probable that the cartilage will adhere to the bars. We'll find out in 2.5 years, but she thinks it will not.
So, yes, am using MS Contin, but only 15mg instead of the 30 from last time. And I have had no oxy since I left the hospital at like 2something yesterday. Back on ibuprofen 800. Miralax (bleech), and the moxy-floxy at night.
We go for another CXR today, then meet with Dr. J, and then hopefully I can get all my imaging. Mark wants to take me out to dinner (I'm less enthused by food in general at the moment).
And now I get to think about cancer. If it were just this surgery, I could probably be back to work after two full weeks. (So...probably October 12.) The pain isn't that awful. I need to stretch more and I need to walk more and it's August in Phoenix. Mark is making me use my IS. But once I deal with some business today (making follow up appt with PCP, doing health history forms for the breast center people), I fully intend to bury my head into playing Skyrim, and slaying dragons.
I am grateful to Dr. J, you know. I was really upset by the infection, yes. But because of this surgery, we found the breast cancer I was going to inevitably get early. I told her that. So. um. yay.
This isn't the stupidest year of my life. I thought it through yesterday, and stupider years were: 2012, 1990, and 2005. Maybe in that order. Fifth grade wasn't that fun, either, come to think of it...1981. Probably cancer is worse than Sr. Maura was....but you know, that's a bit of a toss-up. You wouldn't be able to convince 10 year old me of that.
I think 2017 should be a good one, thoough. I have decided. I should also think of really awesome years, too: 2011, 1993, 1998, 2002. I think 2017 should be awesome. And that's only four months off. Four months is enough to get rid of some stupid cancer cells, I think. Probably have more scarring and stuff on my chest. And I'm going to have to be even pickier about bra-shopping (and this is something I am picky about now.) I don't want any boring beige bras, either, ones that scream, "I see the softer side of Sears." If Rupaul's girls can wear extravagant, jewelled corsets and they have no breasts at all, I should be able to do the same thing. Maybe THAT's where I need to go bra shopping...Victoria's Secret has let me down several times now. I need to go down Broadway to the shops that have size 20 stilettos.
Yes. I need an absolutely ridiculous, gorgeous bra worthy of Drag Race. After all of my doctor appointments next week (er...this week, now)....that's where I'm gonna go, hunty.
But for today, I'm going to drink Miralax and kill dragons.
They did send me out with a JP drain, which may get pulled today. If there's any doubt that it's putting out more than 30cc over 24 hours, I'll keep it another day, and get it out myself tomorrow.
My kidneys are working energetically (they dumped a lot of fluid in me intra-op), my gut is needing to be coaxed to wake up. Pain is not as bad as the first surgery. I can get out of bed by myself, for one, and I'm doing okay movin around. I need to stretch my chest out more, and it doesn't feel good to do this.
I've got new scars on my chest, a smiling line under my left breast now, clockwise up to my sternum. The left side is pretty bruised, and theres' a matching purple bruise on the left arm. It's not too horrible. I can only pull 750cc on my incentive spirometer, and can't sleep on my left, but I can sleep on my back and my right. Some more walking at home on the track should help a huge amount for those things. Chest stretches, which hurt a lot but will help with all my fancy scars.
I guess what happened to the ribs is that they had fractured, and begun to knit together underneath the bar. There's no doubt this needed to be fixed with surgery. The hardware looks a little like a bike chain on the CXR; it's longer than I expected. I'll upload when I have all the imaging. She actually didn't do plating with the cartilage. She cut it in places, and then tied it with fiber wire to the bars. I was a little loopy and craning my neck to see that when she was going through it in the hospital, so today I should have a better understanding of what was cut where. It is possible, but not probable that the cartilage will adhere to the bars. We'll find out in 2.5 years, but she thinks it will not.
So, yes, am using MS Contin, but only 15mg instead of the 30 from last time. And I have had no oxy since I left the hospital at like 2something yesterday. Back on ibuprofen 800. Miralax (bleech), and the moxy-floxy at night.
We go for another CXR today, then meet with Dr. J, and then hopefully I can get all my imaging. Mark wants to take me out to dinner (I'm less enthused by food in general at the moment).
And now I get to think about cancer. If it were just this surgery, I could probably be back to work after two full weeks. (So...probably October 12.) The pain isn't that awful. I need to stretch more and I need to walk more and it's August in Phoenix. Mark is making me use my IS. But once I deal with some business today (making follow up appt with PCP, doing health history forms for the breast center people), I fully intend to bury my head into playing Skyrim, and slaying dragons.
I am grateful to Dr. J, you know. I was really upset by the infection, yes. But because of this surgery, we found the breast cancer I was going to inevitably get early. I told her that. So. um. yay.
This isn't the stupidest year of my life. I thought it through yesterday, and stupider years were: 2012, 1990, and 2005. Maybe in that order. Fifth grade wasn't that fun, either, come to think of it...1981. Probably cancer is worse than Sr. Maura was....but you know, that's a bit of a toss-up. You wouldn't be able to convince 10 year old me of that.
I think 2017 should be a good one, thoough. I have decided. I should also think of really awesome years, too: 2011, 1993, 1998, 2002. I think 2017 should be awesome. And that's only four months off. Four months is enough to get rid of some stupid cancer cells, I think. Probably have more scarring and stuff on my chest. And I'm going to have to be even pickier about bra-shopping (and this is something I am picky about now.) I don't want any boring beige bras, either, ones that scream, "I see the softer side of Sears." If Rupaul's girls can wear extravagant, jewelled corsets and they have no breasts at all, I should be able to do the same thing. Maybe THAT's where I need to go bra shopping...Victoria's Secret has let me down several times now. I need to go down Broadway to the shops that have size 20 stilettos.
Yes. I need an absolutely ridiculous, gorgeous bra worthy of Drag Race. After all of my doctor appointments next week (er...this week, now)....that's where I'm gonna go, hunty.
But for today, I'm going to drink Miralax and kill dragons.
