Reconstruction Part 2 Pictures

For those who are interested I am posting pictures of the different stages of the reconstruction process. This first photograph was taken pretty much straight after surgery with the skin expander inserted but not filled. As you will see the drains are still in.

This second photo is taken a few weeks later when I had the first of my saline injections to start expanding the skin expander.

Here we have the skin expander after it was injected a second time. It is now taking on a more breast-like shape.

Third and final saline injection. My poor skin was so dry and stretched my this time, that it was decided not to do any more saline injections after this. The scar runs along the centre of the breast.

This photo was taken almost three weeks after the operation. The scars will eventually fade.  The underside of the breast still is a little bit firm and bruised.  This is just an accumulation of dried blood in the skin underneath. This will also soften up as time goes on. It is also still a bit swollen so the new one is a bit bigger than the  other. My new nipple will be created once all this has healed in approximately three months. I now also have a 'new look' tummy button where a hole had to be cut out over the original one and stitched around the outside of it.   I am due to start chemotherapy on the 15th April for six months  and am most probably going to shave off my hair the weekend previous to that starting.

                                                     

Appreciate What You've Got

Whilst I was in hospital I did a lot of magazine reading. One particular article that has stuck in my mind is one that I read about how we feel about our body image.  We are our own worst critics when it comes to this. I am the first one to admit when I look in the mirror I focus on the areas that I like least about my body.  We are constantly judging our own bodies by the unrealistic images we see in magazines. By that, I don't mean pictures of 'normal' bodies but those of Hollywood stars and models that have had all their imperfections airbrushed out of the picture.  And then, God Forbid, if any of these people are photographed showing cellulite, love handles etc or sin of all sins, going without make-up, such a big deal is made of it that we cringe and think that these things are something to be kept hidden. The point I am trying to make here is that we all have parts of our bodies that we wish were better but once you lose something on your body, you don't know how good it is, till it's gone.
If we didn't have our hands, we would not be able to feel a childs hand, so trustingly, slipping into our own. If we didn't have arms, we would not be able to hug the ones we love the most. Without our legs, there would be places that we could not go to enjoy everything that life has to offer and without feet we would not appreciate walking along a beach and feeling the sand squelch between our toes when the tide washes in.  So enjoy your bodies whilst it is all in working order, yes, even the lumpy, bumpy bits.

Yesterday my daughter Nicole and her partner went to the Wairarapa for the day.  They stopped off at a chocolate shop in Greytown.  She bought me home a present.   It was a new nipple - a chocolate one. Suffice to say, the thought was there but it was far too tasty and by the time I would be ready to use  it, it will have melted......so I ate it!

Home James

I awoke at 5.45am for my pain killers and couldn't get back to sleep...I was excited that I was going to be going home today.  I still didn't get away with not having to have the morning jab though! I got up (after still not being able to eat much breakfast) and got myself showered, dressed and face made up.  Packed up my gear and waited for Darren to arrive and to be discharged. Once all the formalities were done I was free to go. Emma, my lovely student nurse was sad to see me go and said she would miss me.  Best of luck to you Emma, you are  going to make a wonderful nurse!

A Kick Up The Backside

I woke up this morning feeling a little better emotionally. As I lay in bed I decided that I would give myself a swift kick up the backside....pity party over...get on with it girl.   So I made a plan for the day. After breakfast I was going to have a shower, get dressed into some clothes and try to put a little bit of make-up on to make myself feel better. I was not going to return to bed at all today and I wasn't going to laze around watching tv either; instead I was going to walk unaided down to the lounge and do some crossword puzzles.
I seemed to have a morning of interruptions with my dressing across my stomach becoming loose in the shower. The plastic surgeon had to be called in as he doesn't like anybody but himself to touch his dressings. He is a perfectionist, which is what you want when you are having plastic surgery.  The last thing you need is a surgeon slapping you back together and saying "that will do".  He took off the dressings and I saw my new tummy button for the first time. Because he had to stretch the skin down, he had to cut a round hole so my tummy button could show through. He then attached the skin by stitching around the tummy button. He then told me that he was quite concerned during surgery because the skin started to turn blue around the tummy button, which meant there was no circulation and the skin was starting to die but he said that it took on the new blood supply eventually so all is well.
Next event for the day was physio. Today I was going to walk up and down a flight of stairs for the first time. Mission accomplished.  I had successfully managed to get some make-up on my face by lunch time.  When they brought around my lunch of chicken pate, salad, cheese and crackers and leek and potato soup I just looked at it and felt nauseas and had an upset tummy. I didn't quite know what was wrong with me. I had asked Darren to bring in KFC for my tea that night too. As much as the meals are beautiful I just felt like some junk food.
I managed to go down to the lounge for an hour and do some crosswords but as the afternoon wore on I felt more sick so ended up going back to my room and laying down for a while. The nurse suspected that it was now the ibuprofen upsetting my tummy, so  she decided to stop giving it to me. Now I was just down to panadol. Darren turned up with the KFC the same time as the dinners were served. Just one whiff of the meal made feel queasy again but as I watched him scoffing his KFC, my mouth began to water.  I managed to eat a piece of chicken and some chips.  It was the best KFC I'd tasted in a long time. The nurse was disgusted!!!!
That evening I went to bed and watched the Sunday night movie, laughing until my stitches were fit to bust.  Tomorrow I was going home.

I Don't Like Mondays

I don't much like Mondays and even though I didn't have to get up for work, today was no exception.  I woke up feeling very miserable and tearful and missing home. I still hadn't caught up on my sleep so today I decided I was going to have a bit of a party...a pity party that is!! I don't really think I had allowed myself to do that since my diagnoses five months ago. After breakfast I got into the shower, leaning on the stool to support my still painful back. As I viewed my, what felt like a mutilated body, I asked myself what I had done to deserve having to go through all this. I felt like my life had just begun to settle down. I was married to a fabulous man and we had just bought a new home and were planning a cruise in October...this whole episode had put our lives on hold, both physically, mentally and financially. I try to be a nice person and can't understand why there are people in the world who cause others horrendous harm but get away unscathed from things like this. I cried like I had never cried before but it felt good to let go of the grief.
Later on, one of the nurses came in and sat with me and listened to how I was feeling. Even though she hadn't been through it, she was very understanding and just to have somebody listen was comforting. She also thought that the morphine type medication was causing my sadness so she decided to try ibuprofen instead.
When Darren arrived he took me out for another spin in the wheelchair. This time we ventured outside for a breath of fresh air and did a few wheelies around the carpark which blew the cobwebs away.  On the way back to my room me made me drive myself...crikey...and I thought I was bad enough steering a Pak N Save trolley.  Those things have a mind of their own.

Same Stuff - Different Day And A New Means Of Travel

The next three days all sort of rolled into each other with lots of magazine reading, tv watching, having visitors, eating, physio and walking the corridors on the zimmer frame. Friday night I found it very difficult to get to sleep and lay awake until 2:00am. I relentlessly rang for the nurse and asked her for something to help me sleep. Morning came around all too quickly so on Saturday I was a bit of a cot case having had only about 4 hours sleep. My back was still giving me a tremendous amount of pain and the plastic surgeon told me that sometimes that can occur after surgery such as this. The nurses were very kind; one even went as far as using some of her own special anti-flam rub and massaged it in for me. I had also developed a bit of a cough irritated throat from the tubes which were put down there during surgery to keep the airways open.  The cathetar was also irritating my bladder and making me feel as if I wanted to wee continually, so I was pleased when they removed it on the Saturday. I was now able to walk around my room unaided but very slowly.
On Sunday Darren came in and I asked the nurses if we could use one of the wheelchairs as I had not been out of my room since Wednesday and was getting cabin fever. They said we could and so Darren took me for a bit of a spin along the corridor.  It felt so strange to be pushed in one of those and I felt like an old lady but it was good to be free for five minutes.

First Day As A New Woman

Today I woke up so hungry that I couldn't wait for the breakfast to come round. It had been 24 hours since my last meal. If you think for one moment that you get a good rest when you go into hospital for something like this, then let me tell you, that you do not. Hospital life is very busy and begins at 5:30am with painkillers as a pre-breakfast appetizer.  Then once you have drifted back off to sleep, you are woken again for a nice jab in the upper thigh with a sharp needle full of anti-blood clotting drugs. Not a pleasant way to start the day I can tell you and each day you get another nice bruise to prove it.

The plastic surgeon's visit was next. He told me that the surgery had gone well but my poor breast skin was so stretched and thin from the skin expander that they were unable to keep it intact and had to use all of my stomach skin to reform the breast. He also said that they had run out  of skin so there was a little bit of a gap on the underside of the breast next to my arm. I'm buggered if I can notice it; it looks pretty good to me. It is still quite swollen so is a little bigger than the finished product but the swelling should subside by the 3rd week. After breakfast, the nurses came in and gave me a bit of a wash and brought me my toothbrush so I could feel a bit more refreshed. Once that was done it was time for exercises with the physio and my first attempt at getting out of bed. This was extremely difficult to do. I had to bring my knees up, roll onto my side and then push up with my arms, at the same time swinging my legs off the bed. Once I had done it, I burst into tears and blew snot bubbles everywhere. I didn't really know why I was crying because it didn't really hurt. The nursing staff said it was the morphine and anaesthetic that causes the tears. They then bought me a walking frame which I grasped for dear life and pulled myself to half-standing with it. I could not stand up straight and was crouched over like an elderly woman. The pain I felt on standing was almost unbearable. It wasn't the operation site that was the problem; I felt like I had been smacked in the lower back with a piece of 4 x 2. I was able to manage one step forward and two to the side (bit like a waltz really) and then I sat back down on the bed exhausted....what an effort! They then left me to sleep and said they would be back for more exercises in the afternoon.  Hmmm...I couldn't wait!

Reconstruction Part 2

Well, today is the big day and once again I find myself standing at the breakfast bar, half asleep, gobbling down breakfast and knocking back my last cup of tea with milk before my food curfew begins at 7:00am. It was going to be a long time until I would be able to have anything to eat again.  We left for the hospital  ready for my admittance at 11:30am. We were again greeted by my lovely student nurse Emma. I now began to feel like an old hat around the place and almost felt inclined to ask if there were any jobs going as I seem to be spending so much time at Bowen Hospital, I may as well work there; after all I do know all of the staff!! Once again, I had my  surgical shower, donned my lovely blue hospital nightie that buttoned at the shoulders and signed my life away with the anaesthetist and jumped into bed awaiting my turn, like a lamb to the slaughter. At 1:00pm I gave my daughters a kiss and Darren walked with me as far as he was allowed to go. I gave him a kiss and told him I would bring him back a new woman. Once in theatre the team began preparing me for my surgery. I couldn't believe how different it was again going under the anaesthetic. This time I felt like I was walking down a beige corridor which  had a white light at the end but I couldn't quite make it to the end.
The next thing I knew it was gone 6 o'clock and I heard the recovery room nurse asking me what my pain level was on a scale from 1-10. With all the strength I could muster to talk, I told them it was a 9. They gave me a shot of morphine and gave me the pump to hold. Each time I felt pain, I was to press the button and the tap would administer a dose. Once awake, they wheeled me back to my room where I dozed in and out for about an hour and don't really remember much except my daughter Nicole wiping my hot face with a nice cool flannel.
In between times, I remember waking up and sleepily having a quick peek at my newly formed boobie. When I was properly awake my voice was so raspy from having the tube down my throat for five hours, it sounded like I had smoked a whole packet of Winfield Red in one go. I was so hungry but didn't have the strength to eat anything. My first meal became a lemonade iceblock which I ate whilst struggling to keep my eyes open between bites. The worst part of post-op is that the nurses come in every 30 minutes and are administering IV drugs, taking temperatures and blood pressures etc so once I did fall asleep, I was jolted awake again until 11pm at night and then every two hourly afterwards.

Reconstruction - Part 1 (Contains graphic pic)

On Wednesday 3rd March I had the first step of my reconstructive surgery at Bowen Hospital. My operation was scheduled for 3pm but the plastic surgeon was still in theatre so they didn't get started on me until about 4pm.  I hadn't had anything to eat since 10 am that morning and nothing to drink since 12noon so was keen to get this over with so I could afterwards lay back, have a drink and watch 'Packed To the Rafters' at 8.30 that evening.  I had a sense of dejavu as I had my pre-op antiseptic shower and donned my lovely surgical socks. This time I felt so calm in fact I remember feeling more nervous than this when I first had a bikini wax.  This time I had the honour of being wheeled into theatre by the plastic surgeon himself and the anasethetist.  This time I had a good look around the theatre and noticed that there were six people all taking care of me plus the student  nurse who I had agreed to let observe the operation.This same nurse will also be taking care of me along the way right through to the end of the reconstructive process. It was strange going under the anasethetic this time. The first time I felt woozy and remember going out but this time my arm felt warm and that was the last thing I knew until I woke up in recovery.  The operation this time was only a short one taking about an hour.  It is called a delay.  The surgeon makes an incision in the shape of a horseshoe on my tummy.  This is to get the blood circulation going into the piece of skin they are going to cut out to form my new breast. From the photograph you can see the lines which the plastic surgeon has drawn.  This is the area which will be cut out next week.  The incision has been covered with honeycomb padding and waterproof dressing so I can shower.

The surgeon also drew some saline out of the skin expander because the skin was so stretched, that the fold of the expander was almost pushing a hole through my skin; so now I have a wrinkled up triangle shape for a breast.I came home the next morning and have been up and about but still quite tired and making sure I have lots of sleeps.