The Breast Quest #11

Mission accomplished! Came home with most of the left side of my chest bandaged. Will be able to take the dressing off later today and shower.

The hospital let me keep my support hose and booties. Never thought I would actually own a pair of support hose. They use these to help keep blood clots from forming during surgery. They also wrapped my legs in these pads with tubes which inflate and deflate, like a massage to help with the prevention of clots. Very interesting.

The wire insertion was very unpleasant. Everything went fine until they injected the blue dye to stain the tissue. Felt like my whole chest was on fire! The needle was removed after the wire was put in, so I didn't have to wear a cone over the breast.

Radiologist and Anesthesiologist were reallly cute. If you're a female and you're going to have male doctors touching your breast, they have to be cute, right?

I remembered being wheeled into the operating room and it was freezing like they said it would be. We had music for the party but I don't remember what it was, darn it. They started up the leg massage, put something in my IV, put an oxygen mask on my face and that was all I remember. Don't remember getting sleepy at all, just went bye-bye. 2 hours later, I woke up in the recovery room feeling very sore, but the morphine helped. Came home with a prescription for percocet and crashed for 13 hours without taking even one pill.

Hope to get the pathology report back this week and have to see the surgeon within 10 days for follow-up. Stay tuned as you may hear our sassy and spunky heroine cussing a blue streak when she removes the tape from her arm where the IV was and most likely some arm hair as well.

The Breast Quest #10

Today was my pre-op appointment to get the majority of the paperwork completed, including bringing in every medicine, vitamin, herbal or supplement I use so they can write it all down.

Had to have blood drawn and they couldn't find a vein. Apparently, I can thank my red hair for that. The lab tech said that red heads are very hard to draw blood from because we are mutants missing something in our genetic makeup that enables our veins to be round instead of flat. Yeah right... They ended up using a vein on the knuckle below my pinkie finger of my right hand. That shit hurt, let me tell you!

I just need to consume large quantities of water between now and next Tuesday to enlarge the veins so I don't look like I got the shit kicked out of me after surgery.

Stay tuned as our sassy and spunky heroine has to figure out she will survive without her caffeine on the day of the surgery.

The Breast Quest # 9

Spoke to the surgeon's office today. The surgery has been scheduled for May 22. I have to check in at 8 am, but may have to be there earlier for pre-op; they will let me know. The actual surgery will be at 11:00.

Funnily enough, I have been feeling frustrated at all the waiting that I have been enduring, but now that the date has been scheduled, now I feel like I have a million and one things to do and no time to get it all done!

Stay tuned as our sassy and spunky heroine must now go find a sports bra and figure out how many books to take with her to the surgery and still find time to enjoy some ice cream!

April Reading Review

Read 4 books in April...

Three Bedrooms In Chelsea by Liz Ireland

Rating: 8 *'s

My first by this author and definitely not my last. Enjoyed all the characters, though I still have a coughing fit when I think about what their rent is. Yikes! I would be interested to read a sequel to see how Edie, Greta and Danielle make out in their Chelsea digs.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Rating: 9 *'s

Fantastic story! I hope there will be a sequel! Quite a few surprises at the end that enhanced the story. I thought the characters were highly entertaining and well defined.

Marley & Me: Life And Love With The World's Worst Dog by John Grogan

Rating: 9 *'s

What a wonderful, heartwarming, funny and sad story! The author does a wonderful job of opening the windows of his family's life and experiences with this wonderful dog that the reader will feel like they are a part of the lives of the Grogans and Marley.

Lexi James And The Council Of Girlfriends by Melissa Jacobs
Rating: 8 *'s

I enjoyed all of the interpersonal relationships between the members of the Council Of Girlfriends. Some loose ends at the end so I'm hoping these characters will be revisited in the future.