Friday, November 13, 2009

The story of my chest

This has little to do with work and a lot to do with why I have not been posting or even at work.

For those who don't know, I just had a breast reduction. It was really time. I started to realize I was different in the last 4 weeks of 8th grade, when, as the new kid in school I was taunted endlessly over my chest size. The jeers of "man it's stuffy in here! Anyone have a tissue?!" sent me packing to the guidance councelor's office where I sat and helped mail end of year letters to parents for the remainder of the year. Thanks Mrs. Yaukey! You pulled me out of a tough time as the new kid with my raging 13 year old hormones.

With the birth of each of my babies they grew and never went down. Now by the end of a night at work my chest was covered in grease and the headaches reached migraine proportions. Those who have seen me this past decade know it's been rough but that I was always waiting until I was finished having children because breastfeeding was more important to me.

I'm glad I waited. I had a child who reacted so violently to hypoallergenic formula he landed on a helecopter at 5 days old. My "girls" are thankful they could keep up with the demand of of his food allergies for as long as the doctor wanted us to nurse.

But now, my youngest has weaned, my tubes are now tied and it is time.

Surgery was Friday Nov 6th. I've stopped in at work once to have my one manager sigh "I wish I could have a breast reduction" while other gals told me I should have donated to their cause.

What follows is my post op post to a board I was frequenting for pre op support. The women there are having or have had reductions as well. But I figured it would make a nice blog entry even if I can't really post pics that would be fitting of this entry...

HONEY I'M HOME!

Holy schmoley. That was the easiest surgery EVAR!

Wish the hours leading up to the event were easy lol. The day before they called saying to be at the hospital at 11:45 a.m. NPO after midnight but 6 oz clear liquid before 7:45. Then they dropped the bomb...due to swine flue being so prevalent absolutely no children were permitted into the hospital. Now I could explain our daycare issues, but that would take 6 posts, so I'll leave it at "we're working on it to no avail". MIL has fibromayalgia and can not lift him due to pain. So now I'm stuck being faced with canceling because I have no one to watch our toddler. They wanted my husband to drop me off and leave me alone because of the baby and well, um...no. MIL took massive pity on me and watched him anyway.

Morning of, the original sick child is crying and coughing but we ship her off to school anyway b/c we figure it's nerves. She forces herself to miss the bus. My sons both woke with a fever. Great. Call MIL she says bring them both there in spite of the danger to her and FIL (who has had a lung lobe removed last year so diminished lung function). Almost cancelled due to fear of getting them sick. My nephew was dx with swine flu so now I'm terrified that's what my boys have. They SCREAM the entire way there. I almost start crying. Get them there and the 6 year old tells grandma "my mom is having an operation today and we're probably going to have to get a foster mom" Poor kid was terrified as fun and exciting as we have tried to make this endeaver, add fever and chills and the kid couldn't cope.

Hubby ushered me out of the house at that point b/c he saw the tears welling even though I assured him I would be back tomorrow.

Start down the road and I call my credit card co, to try and pay my bill since their web site has been down. After 5 minutes of menus I finally get a person. Can't figure out my bank routing number and suddenly lose the call. It took 10 more minutes to work my way through the menu again and the poor lady who got me the second time probably thought I was a crazy woman.

Get to the hospital and the garage is full...we find another one. Call up at this point b/c riding around the city made us late. They tell us we were directed to the wrong garage anyway but they would help DH get where he needed to be for free parking.

Then things calmed.

Shwoo.

Tears done. Still feel like a bad mom but I'm here.

Fill out the allergy info get called in. Placed in a gown. Nurse comes to get IV started and I tell her I'm a wimp. She gives me lidocain LOL. Then draws a pretty butterfly on my tape. (I took pics of course lol).

Anesthesia comes in and we discuss the allergies. We opt to forgo anti nausients pre surgery and try zofran in recovery. He's talking me through the gadgets they will use to keep me breathing and something called an LMA (i think?) I asked if it was an oral airway and he said no. It was like a premie oxygen mask with a tube on it. "Ooooh can I see it?!" he was like You want to see it? I said yeah! So he agreed to show me all his toys when we got in there.

PS comes in and draws the markings. I told him I forgot to bring nipple tassles for everyone. He cracked up laughing. I didn't realize how saggy my boobs were until the drawings kept getting larger lol.

Then we went!

Into the OR we go and I start gaping at all the instruments where I admited I was pre med and we were looking and explaining all the toys. (now with any luck I will get into med school but I want to be a pediatrician so don't go getting excited I will do your boob jobs later). They all agreed with my personality I'd make a great ped lol. Oxygen on, I regaled with tales of how scared I was the first time I had to get oxygen and wouldn't keep it on. They said I was a much better patient this time. Then the anesthesiologist said he was giving me some meds to make me sleepy.

"So this is the part where I start to forget and won't remember till the other side huh?"
"Yup"
"Guess I'd better say good night soon"
"If you want"
"I probably won't remember it though"
"Probably not"
"ooh things starting to spin. Guess that's my cue. Goodnight"

and then I was in recovery..

Surprised at how well I felt. The semi circle insicion hurt. But not the lollipop stick or the areolar incision. I looked down and got instantly nauseous. Woops. My bad. They didn't give Zofran until I was in my room though.

On being wheeled up a girl from another message board I've been on for the past two years was in the hallway waiting on me. She was on "let them know how BFGuru's doing" detail. I tried to pee in a bed pan to no avail, so my friend I just met got to see my hynie cheeks going to the bathroom, where I really got dizzy and nauseous. DH hadn't been called in the waiting room so she called his cell phone to tell him where I was. I was so glad she was there. But not so glad when the nausea finally overcame me and I yacked right in front of her. Oh well. She's a nursing student. She can deal LOL.

Zofran did nothing for the nausea. I finally remembered they gave me compazine when I had morphine in the hospital before. So I convinced them to try it. The pharmacy had to make a special batch for me so it could go in the IV since all they had were suppositories and shots. And as I explained to them "I'm a needlephobe and don't really feel like being sodomized after my breasts have already been yanked to kingdom come". And of course they all laughed. Compazine did the trick. And the nausea finally lifted, but not before I passed out cold on my friend DH. I was trying so hard to stay awake. They were freaking funny together and I didn't want to miss a joke, but my body demanded I do other wise.

I got a little nauseous on the way home today, but we stopped at the mall on the way b/c it had the closest pharmacy. As we waited he bought me a pair of slip on sneakers and some arnica. I'm not sure how or when to start it, but I'm on percocet and clyndomyacin (antibiotic) right now, so i think I'll wait until monday to run it by him to make sure there won't be any drug interactions.

I slept till noon basically (not counting the non stop vital checks) and feel pretty darn good.

Oh, the girls are TINY!!!!! Like perky little handfuls from what I could see when he checked my bandages. My nipples are facing straight ahead instead of at the floor. And I'm so shocked at how little pain I'm in. Just uncomfortable. I'll keep the percocet coming a few more days just to be safe, but I feel pretty freaking awesome.

Hubs made me some lemon tea and now I'm up in bed being a good little patient. I'm soo glad I did this. Oh and the stats are 550 gms right breast 495 gms left breast. I was kind of shocked and asked the PS if I had absolutely no dense tissue at all. He said I had some, but goodness what a difference it made. I think since I was losing weight recently I probably wasn't a true J cup anymore either, since my size last measurment was a 36J and I was wearing a 38H to find a cup that fit locally. That had JUST started to gape a little, but I wasn't going to buy a new bra just to wear it for two weeks before surgery. I have no idea what size I was going in today, but I did notice some of the knots in my neck are already gone which was TOTALLY a surprise. I thought it would be a few days.

Well that's my OTR post. Drama inflicted but still pretty good. I'm glad I went through with it.


And here I sit 5 days post op. It's been a weird week. But I can explain that at another day.

I could really do with some fries though...

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