The Other Side - Part 2

---

Ok. OKAY! I'm done. The funk is done.

No more sad sack o'shit blogs from me!

So let's roll it back some.

Captain's Log: 28 September 2022.

My daughters drove me but only one could stay with me until they wheeled me away. I can't say I liked the whole process: arrive, valet or don't (we don't - like I said, personal driver, which was nice), go into the Smilow entrance, security guard asks us why we're here. I thought it was a trick question.

And now, the condensed version because all this happened like 5 weeks ago, I did a lot of drugs since then, and I, for real don't remember much of anything... except:

Frau said it best. LIES! All LIES!

Almost everything I thought I knew about my surgery, subsequent hospitalization, and recovery was WRONG.

The RNs and PAs were awesome. I cannot be more grateful for the care I received.

Kindness is inherent. I'd like to think I am a kind person (shut up), but when measured against the nurses and caregivers on the oncology floor at Yale? I'm Ebenezer Scrooge. Anybody got a spare goose?

I have two very large, long, scars across my chest, about 10-inches each. They are where boobs used to be. I have a new belly button. It is where stomach used to be. I have a hip-to-hip scar on my lower belly where flab used to be, and that flab is now tucked into my new, little, boobies as healthy tissue, replacing the shit that tried to kill me.

Like I said, don't remember much about the past 5 weeks, but there were some things I couldn't forget... though I've tried.

• On surgery day, Molly sat in the waiting area from 6:30am until they brought me around, about 10:50pm. That's 16 hours. I owe her a HUGE THANK YOU. MoMo, I love you. Please disregard my initial reaction to seeing you when I came out of anesthesia. The nurse said to me " Your daughter is here. As soon as she leaves, we'll give you something for the pain." Molly walked in to Recovery, after waiting 16 hours, said "Hi, Mom. How are you doing?", and I said "I'm fine. You can leave now." ........Hard Stop...... I wanted those pain meds, man!!!! Turns out the nurse only said that because I would likely fall asleep and wouldn't have been able to talk to her. How's that for gratitude? Oh, you just sat in a hospital waiting area for 16 hours hoping to hear news about your mom? Great. GTFOuuuuuuttttt. I needs me drugs! I'm horrible.

• I have some kind of allergy to Band-Aids, the plasticy kind, not the fabric ones. It says so on my chart, MyChart and like everywhere else you look. I even had an allergy bracelet on - big red ALLERGY warning. The team that gave me nerve blocks on my back missed the allergy warning. I had blisters, some as big as my thumb, on my lower back where they must've put some kind of adhesive. Ouch.

• In Recovery (I know it's not called "Recovery" but I'm trying to simplify), right after my 14 -FOURTEEN HOUR- surgery, some hospital admin person named Penny was NOT doing her job according to the mumbling I heard coming from the Recovery nurses. I needed to be moved upstairs, but freaking Penny was jamming up the works. Get your shit together Penny! This is remarkable only because I told Molly to remember the name "Penny" so I could blog about it. Why?? Who knows!!?? I was high as a kite!

• So yes, 14 hours on the table. I died 33 times (in my imagination). Honestly, I remember nothing and it was fine. Woke up to scars and pain and my smiling daughter. <3

• Every new nurse I met was nicer, kinder and more gentle than the next. I would tell every one of them how my daughter is a nurse, as is her boyfriend. How they work in the ED, in Queens, and about how proud I am of them. When Abbey came to visit that first day, we (my mom and I) learned from her that Emergency Department nurses are not the same as oncology nurses. Abbey's medicine is, to borrow a line from the TV show ER, "Treat 'em and street 'em", in other words, mostly about efficiency. It was interesting to hear the contrasts. Either way, I'm still so proud of our nurse. She's awesome, Mike's awesome. I love them very much.

• When I got to go home, on Sunday (so I was at Yale for 5 days, if you're keeping score at home), there was an... incident, shall we say, as we're waiting for our car. Some guy hit a pedestrian with his car as the pedestrian was walking to work at the hospital. There was yelling, reenactments, police, hosptial higher-ups. What there wasn't? Our car. For like 30 minutes while they straightened that all out.

So I'm home. I sleep on my nifty-lifty chair. I take Tylenol when I have pain (pretty much all the time) and wait for the next steps.

I needed a walker (surprise! who knew?) to get in and out of my bed/chair at the hospital, and fortunately I was able to borrow one from a family member to use at home, because holy crap did I need it that first 2 weeks home.

Visiting Nurses came. Physical Therapists came. Occupational Therapists came. I was doing just fine, according to all of them, remarkably well, actually. :)

Drains SUCK. They pull, they catch on stuff. They're a pain to empty and track. You need to wear them suspended from a lanyard around your neck in the shower. I had 7 drains when I left the hospital. Apparently, that's a lot.

I got some out about 2 weeks after surgery, and the rest out about a week after that. Definitely made life easier.

My mother is a saint. She. Is. A. Saint. She took care of me, of my meds, my drains, injecting me twice a day with blood clot-preventing medicine. She did all the laundry. She made all the meals. Not just for me, but for the whole house. This isn't new, but it couldn't have been easy. And then she had to take care of the PITA dog who has to be hand-fed, only by her. Brat. She also had to update everyone on my condition which was like a part-time job. I don't want to think what life would've been like without her there for me. Ma, I love you. Thank you.

FEED ME, MIMI! Or I hit you with my purse!

So that's pretty much status quo for a few weeks - aside from little bumps in the road - I'm just healing and resting and watching sports on my nifty-lifty chair, waiting for the big day when I get my oncotype score.

The oncotype score, as I understand it, is a combined number of factors that, when put together, give you a score on the likelihood of your cancer recurring. The lower the score, the better your chances are of it not coming back, and most important, the less likely you are to need chemotherapy.

There are other factors, like age. That's a big one. My oncotype score was 17. That is low. Not the lowest, but low. Also, I'm 51. Fifty is the big cut off age for needing chemo with a score over 15. Direct quote from my medical oncologist:

If you were 49, or 50, you would 100% need chemo. There's not a doubt in my mind. - Dr. Silber

Therefore, I DO NOT NEED CHEMO!

WeeeeeHOOOOO!!! No chemo for me!

But, as you can imagine, I had questions. I mean, 51 and 50 are like, a few months apart... How does the cancer know what month it is? What if I feel like I'm 29, but only look like I'm 51? What if I stumble into a time warp? Will the cancer be like "Ah HA! We got you now, lady!". I know, I know. I'm being ridiculous. There's no WAY I feel 29.

However, I still need radiation therapy. I have already gone through the initial intake, and did my CT Sim, got my pink-ink tattoos, and have been marked for accuracy. I have a test run on the 11th, and my 5-week radiation therapy beings on November 14th, so I'll finish up the week before Christmas.

There are other things, like bone density, menopause and straitening out the new boob material. But right now? I'm GOOD!.

We are on The Other Side.