Cancer Recurrence: Biopsy/Surgery

Yesterday, Jan. 4th:

So... I got up at 4 am to be at the hospital at 5:15 am for my surgery scheduled at 7:15 am!  Why I had to be there two hours early?  I do not know... Mom & I spent a lot of time sitting and waiting.  Seems a little extreme, but... whatever.

I wasn't put completely under, not until he decided if he was able to take the whole mass out, so I was talking to him (felt kind of like in a dream state).  I remember, at one point, warning him that I was going to cough because I knew it was going to shake my body.  Wanted to make sure he wasn't cutting when it happened.  *LOL*

I drifted off a few times and woke myself up snoring... next thing I know they're rousing me and I had to scooch over off the table to the bed.  I went into recovery, they got me some water and brought mom in.  After about 15 minutes or so they were getting me on my way.  I was released around 8:45 am.

The doctor wasn't able to remove the mass, it had become a little bigger and harder and the doctor said it may cause too much nerve damage.  We'll have to shrink it first.

I was tired, but felt great.  I was ready to go to work, of course, mom wouldn't let me.  They had given me a prescription for pain killers, but I never end up using them; so mom & I decided, the pharmacy is right down the road, if we need them she could run down real quick and get them... but no sense spending the money for no reason.  Glad we didn't get them, I didn't even need Tylenol or Nuprin... I didn't have any pain what-so-ever.  Dr. Eddleman is a great surgeon!

My Incision

He put stitches inside and glued the outside.

Around 5 pm, mom and I noticed that the glue was splitting and my incision was pulling open.  One side was gaping and this orangish liquid was starting to drain out.  Kind of looked like betadine solution. 

Incision Starting to Open

**basically, my breast was too big and heavy and was pulling on the incision, I ended up having to hold my boob up to keep it from splitting completely open**

So we tried taping it up and I called the doctor's service... he quickly called back.  Told me he was going into a surgery so he would be at the hospital, but anyone working the ER could take care of it... and that he didn't put betadine in it.  *lol*  We really didn't want to run all the way to Raleigh so we decided to go to the Wakefield branch.  They wouldn't treat me... I had my surgery at Rex Hospital and this Rex branch wouldn't treat me.  They wouldn't even look at it before deciding... all they heard was 'surgery this morning, incision opening up' and they didn't want to touch it.  They were afraid something was wrong and didn't want a lawsuit!  Can you believe that shit!?

So we ended up going all the way downtown Raleigh.  They took me quickly into Triage where I told them who my doctor was and that he told me he would be here and that they needed to call or page him, they coded me a 2 (yellow), then sent me into the waiting room.  There we sat and waited, and waited.  We had arrived around 6:30 pm.  I think it was about 8 pm when I went and tried to find out if they had called my doctor.  I couldn't get any help.  At 8:12 pm I called my doctor's service again to let him know that I was there and I didn't think they were telling him.  By 9 pm, I figured he was no longer there.  We sat waiting until 9:45 pm.  One lady started doing second passes because so many people were waiting for very long periods.  When she came across me and my situation... she was very angry that I had been coded yellow and had not been attended to.  She said I should have been sent over to Minor care immediately.  So she called over and told them to make room for me, then, apparently, she called my doctor... who was still there and getting ready to do an appendectomy.  He came over right away and took care of me himself.  Mom & I were so surprised to see him walk in.  Everybody kept apologizing to me.  By this time, half of the incision had split open and it had continued to drain quite a bit.  He put a stonger glue on and then (suture) strips for added support.  So I had to wear my bra to bed for extra support, which totally sucked!

There was this funny part... the girl was trying to have me sign the disclosures while the doctor was getting the glue and stuff... I was trying to hold my boob up, while trying to hold the chart with the papers to sign, plus trying to sign.  As I'm trying to juggle this, I finally look up at her and said, "You wanna hold my boob while I sign this?"  She started apologizing and said she would come back, so I ended up signing the paperwork AFTER I was treated.

We got home just after 11 pm.  I sent an email to my supervisor letting her know I wouldn't be in the next day.

So that was my day!  No... so that was my LONG day!

**Oh, my doctor had asked me in the morning if I had heard back about my PET scan, I told him I hadn't and I suspected they weren't going to call me but have my Oncologist let me know.  Well, when I saw him in the ER, he said he called about my scans and they didn't show any masses anywhere else.  (At least not to a point where the scan can pick it up... if it has just started to spread, whatever we do for this mass will most likely exterminate anything else that may be too small for the scan to pick up.)  So that is extremely good news! They are going to send my biopsy to the Mayo Clinic, which will take a little bit longer to get the results back... but he should have them by next Tuesday for my post-surgery follow-up appointment.