I'm down one implant.
Remember the first chemo treatment that put me in the hospital with a cellulitis infection (bacterial infection in the skin-in my case, it was the skin around my implants) because it totally wiped out my white blood cell count? Well, that got better and we moved on with the lower dose of chemo after delaying my second treatment a week.
Second treatment was much improved, and so was the third. The only major issue I was having was lots of swelling and fluid retention in the boob area. Then one day, a bubble literally popped up in my skin. Like when you get a bump on the head. It was all fluid underneath, and I couldn't feel the hard tissue expander beneath it anymore-it was just soft now. I knew something was wrong! First thing the next morning, I headed to Dr. B (that's my plastic surgeon in case you forgot). By then another fluid bump had popped up too. Of course, the first guess: infection. But my white blood cell counts had been so good lately, and I had no other symptoms of infection. So he cultured the fluid and they came back clean! But a couple days later, the bumps were still pretty big. Dr. B cultured the fluid again, but this time for a scarier bacteria. It isn't life threatening, but it is a pain in the ass to get rid of and could mean me not having implants for over a year plus months and months of antibiotics! HECK NO! But he did say that I could continue with chemo for now...and this was my last AC treatment, which is allegedly the harder phase of my regimen. And by my next follow up a few days later, things were looking much better! The scary bacteria cultures came back clear, and the fluid was almost all gone, but my skin had been stretched out really bad and was looking thin. So the plan was just weekly check ups.
And then that weekend, the fluid all came back. And the skin kept getting thinner and thinner, and I was seriously worried it was going to tear and I'd wind up at the ER for emergency surgery. I kept compulsively checking it...but, I made it to Monday. I had to frantically call my parents and have one of them come meet me at the Dr. B's office to watch Nicky, because I knew this was not going to be a simple or quick visit. Nick's office is about 70 miles away. The job site he is working on now is literally less than a mile from Dr. B's office. He wasn't on site that day because that is my luck!
Dr. B wound up having to deflate the expander a ton so he could cut out the bad skin and stitch me back up. The good news is that it didn't hurt at all since I don't have nerves in that skin anymore, so he was able to easily do it in the office. But when he got inside there, the dermal matrix he put in to help hold the expander (don't really remember what much more about what that is since I hadn't really thought about it since January) was liquefied in that area. He was officially baffled. We were both going back and forth on what to do next. The choices were to (1) assume it was still an infection that just wasn't showing up in the cultures and send me to Infectious Disease for IV antibiotics (which also would probably mean a significant delay in chemo and still may not even work since it was a lot of guesswork) or (2) just take the tissue expander out (which would only delay me a week). We both decided that we need to treat the cancer first and worry about reconstruction later. So that meant back to the OR that Wednesday for outpatient surgery. And another appointment with my PCP to get cleared. So I had to drive Nicky all the way back home with my Dad following us, then head right back out the door and go all the way back to my PCP where they love to run two hours behind on appointments. And that, my friends, is how I spent my Monday.
Oh, yeah...my little brother and only sibling was getting married that Saturday...five hours away. I was devastated. I had already pretty much counted on not going since I was worried my skin was going to explode at any moment (Dr. B said I probably wouldn't have made it past Tuesday anyway, so at least I know I wasn't being paranoid and made the right decision). Plus, now my entire family was going to be gone over the weekend-we had no help if there was an emergency! And I knew this would be stressful for them. They have both been working all weekend long for weeks to make up the time they have been taking off. Now I was going to need their help even more than expected through the week and they wouldn't be able to work over the weekend.
Tuesday was another disaster...Nicky decided to roll around while I was changing his diaper. And it wasn't just a pee diaper. I threw him in the tub, and a few minutes later I looked down to find my shirt was covered in blood. While I was wrangling his poop covered body, all the moving around had caused the incision to bleed. The stitches were still in tact, but I was freaking out...I put pressure on it after frantically calling Dr. B's office and talking to the nurse. I would get it to slow down a little bit, but every time I moved it got worse again. I called my mom and told her she needed to leave work immediately. Nicky refused to get out of the tub, so I just sat in the bathroom and let him play. Then he pulled out the drain plug, and I couldn't get it back in without moving too much. So he sat there shivering in an empty tub. I'd try to get him to climb out on his own, but he'd just yell no and swat my hand away. He's such a turd! After what must have been a good 45 minutes, I got the bleeding down to a slow trickle and somehow convinced Nicky to get out of the tub. I dried him off best I could, but there was no way I was getting clothes or a diaper back on him. I had to just let him run around naked until my mom got there. Then maybe I'd finally be able to get all the poop and blood off myself...
So anyway, surgery went fine. I was nervous, but I also felt like a pro at it by now. We even were joking around with Dr. B when he got there about moving the one implant to the center for now, so I'd at least be symmetrical. I was under anesthesia shortly after 1pm and in the car by 4pm. There was barely any pain at all-I think my throat hurt more from the breathing tube being in there than my chest did. Dr. B said everything looked great and healthy inside, and he was still just baffled. Of course, I imagined the worst and worried he'd find cancer once he got in there-especially since he was so baffled about what was going on, but he assured me there was nothing of the sort. He cultured everything and anything, and some bacteria finally showed up on a culture taken from deep inside there. It was a staph infection! And not a scary type of staph. I was so thankful to finally have an answer. Dr. B said there wasn't even that much growth in the culture, so it was probably just flaring up after the treatments because my immune system takes a hit. And Nick's mom was able to come over from the west coast (of FL, not the US) to help us for a few days, so that was a chance for us to catch our breath after the past few days of disaster.
So that's that. Now I'm bald and down a boob until the end of radiation. I probably will also need a more complicated reconstructive surgery, which involves using skin from a different area of my body. Dr. B will put another expander in at that time, and then a few months after that I can have the final reconstructive surgery. So now I'm guessing I won't be done until around January. That means this shit will have lasted a whole year. A.whole.damn.year.
Emotionally, this little surgery was harder than the mastectomy itself. Now it's more visable. I don't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror anymore. On the way home from Dr. B's office that Monday when we decided to take the expander out, I just broke down. Thankfully, Nicky was asleep...he gets worried when he sees me crying. But I had a little conversation with God-out loud right then and there in my car in between sobs. He can keep throwing stuff at me through treatment, but that means I am done with cancer forever...I'm really getting sick of being on the shitty side of the odds.
On the bright side, I was officially cleared for my treatment today, and I will start the new chemo drug tomorrow. When my oncologist walked in to the exam room at my pre-chemo check up, she just sat down and looked at me and said that I've really been a trooper, and I get a big gold star. Dr. B took out the only drain (I had four last time!) today and said everything looked great now. And...the best part is that one of my dear college friends is in town visiting her family, and we will have lots of quality time to catch up since she will be keeping me company during my treatment!
.JPG)
