Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

The thing that I have discovered mostly since the beginning of this journey is that everything associated with it involves waiting.  Now some people who know me say that I am a patient person but I beg to differ. Every process involves waiting; waiting for appointments, waiting for tests, waiting for the results, waiting to be referred to someone else. Then back you go to square one and start all over again. I am one of the lucky ones because most of my procedures are being done privately except for the chemotherapy.

14th February 2010

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of going to Wellington Public Hospital. (Previous post readers will know how I feel about that place).  Suffice to say, I was seen to a lot quicker this time round. I was booked in for a CT scan at 8.30am.  This test is done as a matter of course just to make sure there is nothing anywhere else they should know about. So the previous night I had to drink a solution of Losec which lines the stomach.  The following morning I wasn't allowed any breakfast and had to drink two more lots of Losec one hour apart before we left and on the way in to the hospital.  Yup, it's great being stuck in early morning traffic with a full bladder.

Once I got to Radiology I had to have, yup you've guessed it, another drink of Losec. This is given before they put dye into my body so that the dye shows up.  The nurse then put a line into my vein so that they could administer the dye.  Once I start chemotherapy I shall be having a larger one of these,  (called a PICC line) in my vein for the entire six months where the chemotherapy drug will be administered.

Once the preliminaries were done I went through to the CT scan machine.  You lay on the bed and the bed raises up and passes the area to be scanned backwards and forwards through the hole where the cameras are. It takes about half an hour. The nurse told me that once the dye was injected I would feel a warmth all over my body and would feel a sensation like I had wet my pants, when actually I hadn't.  Very weird, I must say.

Once I had finished there I had to go and have my MUGA scan which is a moving picture of my heart function.

Firstly I had to have some metal injected into my hand and then had to wait half an hour for it to work it's way to my heart.  Once it had done that I had some radioactive liquid injected into my vein via the line in my arm.  The nurse informed me that I would be radioactive for 12 hours afterwards and to stay away from pregnant women and children. 

The MUGA machine was set up similar to the CT scan only the camera was on the left had side of me  and they lowered it down over my heart area.  I had to lay still for 30 minutes.  Once that was done I was free to go. Who would have thought that the waiting room would have been so full of children so needless to say we didn't hang around.

I had found out the day before that my chemotherapy isn't booked to start until March 18th.   Another wait.  My oncologist had said last week when I met him that I could go ahead and have my reconstruction before starting chemo if I wish as I don't have to have radiation treatment. So I made an appointment later in the day with my plastic surgeon and that's what we have decided to do.  I am booked in to have the first part done on the 3rd March. It involves a night hospital stay where they will score the skin on my abdomen to encourage the blood vessels to that area.  They will cover it will plastic dressing and I will go home for a week. Then on the following Wednesday (10th March) I go back into surgery.  They will take the fat and skin from my stomach and push it up under my skin and into the pocket of stretched skin, to form the new breast. They will then sew up my tummy and create a new belly button as the one I've got now will be pulled down low and will look strange. I will be in hospital for 7 days as this is quite a biggie but will be well worth it.  I have just about had enough of the skin expander as there are some sharp corners on it pushing my skin out from the inside so it will be good to have that gone.   I will be off work for six weeks this time.  Then after that I just have the chemotherapy to go and I shall be as good as new one!