Living at Home with No Boobies
I was really nervous about coming home from the hospital. There were some things in the hospital that I felt I really needed to make it through this. An adjustable bed for one. Getting in and out of my queen sized but very tall bed proved to be a challenge. Not only was it hard to literally climb into bed, but getting from a seated position, to a lying down position and then back again was damn near impossible. And the best part was that I needed to do it all too much. I was still swollen like crazy so I had to go to the bathroom at least 3 times a night. Every 4 hours, like clockwork, I would wake up out of a sound sleep because my body knew it was time for a Loritab. A Loritab meant drinking more water and that meant going to the bathroom more. Luckily for me, before I had to get into bed the first night, my Grandmother brought me a bed wedge which would keep me at a 45 degree angle and make it much easier to get up and down. Climbing onto the bed though... well, there was no cure for that, I was going to have to sweat it out.I also had to get used to living with surgical drains. Drains suck. They smell, they are full of blood which looks gross, and they are dead weight hanging from open holes in your body. In the hospital I was able to clip them to my nightgowns. At home, I was wearing normal clothes. I needed something to do with these drains. My husband took binder clips and dissected them. Then he reassembled them as extentions to my surgical drains. This allowed me to clip them to most clothes but usually I connected them to one of many Ingram Micro lanyards we had lying around. The ab drains were not so easy. I would connect them to my waist but they were most comfortable when I put them in my pants pockets. And that way there were not visible either... except that one time that they burst open in the pocket of my pink chino pants... that was not attractive. I gag just remembering it.
Showering with drains really really sucked. I would attach all 4 to a lanyard which kept them from pulling on my skin but got in the way of everything I was trying to do in there. In addition to the inconvenience of having to wash around drains and tubes, washing your hair when you have major chest trauma is all but impossible. I couldn't raise my arms above chest level, so to wash my hair, I would bend over and hang my head. That's how I would wash, rinse, and condition my hair for weeks to come. Because of my ab scars, pivoting to reach things was very hard as well. My normal 8 minute shower would be a 20 minute shower from this point on. I can't remember a time where I had hot water to spare when I was done with my shower. But even with this inconvenience... it felt so good to be able to shower again!
Clothes
I am very happy to say that all my pants are now a little bigger on me. Thanks to the failed DIEP flap transplant, I got a perfectly tummy tuck! So that one size bigger I had in every pair of pants I owned for my martini rolls was no longer needed! My stomach was super flat and I was super happy! I still have a big butt and big thighs to keep it company, but I can only address one problem at a time, and as of right now, my gut was no longer a problem! All of a sudden I loved my one pair of yoga pants. It helped that they were not tight, had no zippers, and could easily pull on and off. I would wear them just about every day here on in. My shirts were another story.
Unfortunately my shirts were all a bit bigger on me too. I was hoping to come home from the hospital sporting nice perky D's on my chest. Instead not only was I flat, but my chest was actually incaved a bit. My chest was completely flat. All my tshirts that were V neck because crew necks would pull at my neck were no longer sufficient. All my V neck shirts now dipped below my chest line and showed off my new stitches. Wearing a bra now would be a complete joke. Even the camisoles they sell have built in shelf bras. I had to go buy tank tops to cover my stitches so I could wear my old shirts without showing off my neverending abyss of flat chest. It sounds depressing but it really wasn't that bad. At first glance, my lack of boobies made me look thinner. I liked that.
Diet and Vitamins
This was bad. This was very bad. I have been touting the importance of my anti-cancer diet since my diagnosis in January. No sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, no red meat, no fruit. Mostly vegetables, organic chicken, turkey, and fish. While I was in the hospital I did not stick to diet. The crap they were serving in there was nowhere near an anti cancer diet. And even if it was, it was not edible. Me and my team (consisting of my Grandmother and Cathy) decided I should eat anything I could keep down which meant one salad, a quarter of a subway wrap, jello, and once a diet coke. Once I got home, there was a plethora of good, healthy things to eat but each one made me nauseous. The first full day back, my sister Jessie made one of my favorite diet dishes... sauteed chicken, red peppers, and ginger over rice. I ate it for dinner and it was awesome. The next afternoon, I went to have leftovers before my doctor appointment and no sooner did it go down did it come back up again. From that point on, the taste of chicken makes me sick. What the heck? So I ordered some of my favorite food in the world - Thai food! No way is this going to upset my stomach. I paid $30 to get a $12 dish delivered to me at home by Takeout Taxi. That's how important it was! Pad Khing Sod - chicken, brown rice, ginger, peppers, green beans, tofu, yum... I ate half of it and had to put the rest away as I was huddled over with stomach pains. This was not good.
I was losing weight pretty fast, which was exciting, but it wasn't painless. I was starving. After I got rid of my leftover chicken, I was on my way to Dr Burke's office to get my chest drains out. My sister's boyfriend was driving me and we were stuck at a red light on Genesee in front of the airport... right in front of McDonalds. I was still starving. We were 20 minutes early so I asked him to run through the drive thru real quick. One cheeseburger extra pickle with a small fry and a bottle of water. I had to eat something! To my surprise (and horror) I was able to eat it all with no after effects. This was not going to be good. Over the next few weeks, every time I was nauseous I found myself going to McD's for the same old thing - cheeseburger extra pickle and a small fry. That weight loss wouldn't be hanging around for long. But what's worse, every time I see my Grandmother she says "And you are still on your diet right?"... "Yes Grandma, to a T... (except when I need to go to McDonalds and kill my liver)". I feel terrible. I mean, I feel better and my stomach is settled, but my guilt is awful. And the scale has started creeping back up. I have to work hard on making sure this is a temporary phase.
Another part of the anti-cancer diet are the supplements. According to my Grandma, my system is filled with candida and other toxins. I need to take 45 supplements 3 times a day to clear my system of these toxins so my cells will work properly again... something that will be very important if I need chemotherapy. I was able to not take the supplements while I was in the hospital, but now that I am home, I had to get back on plan. Taking 45 pills at a time was not that big a deal before. I did it proudly and I felt better when I took them. They didn't taste pleasant so I took them with polar seltzer instead of water to erase the taste. When you have nausea no matter what you eat, swallowing down 45 pills was not going to be a picnic. In addition, the carbonation from the polar seltzer would make me sick. My stomach was much smaller now, both from a week of barely eating plus the removal of the extra skin and fat on my torso took away room for my stomach to expand. Drinking 2 cups of seltzer water would expand my stomach to the point that it would push on my stitches. So Polar Setzer was out. I would try to take my supplements with plain water. Not only would they themselves fill up my stomach, but the taste and smell of them would make me gag. I am a terrible patient. I can't follow the diet, I can't swallow the pills. I was hiding from the Grandmother the rest of my life.
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| Sarah helping me pack my supplements |
Driving
I was unable to drive while I was on painkillers. Plus I couldn't put on a seatbelt because I was sporting a slew of stitched up wounds not only on my chest but on my abdomen. My right arm sustained some pretty messed up nerve damage from when they pulled out 20 lymph nodes through my armpit. It felt like they pulled out half my nerves with it. My husband moving the blankets next to me in bed would send shooting pains through my arm. As it turns out, operating a gear selector in the car takes quite a bit of arm and chest strength... strength that I had none of. So for the next 2 weeks, I was not driving anywhere. This was the biggest bummer of my whole disability period.
After the 4 days I had to rest at home, every day going forward would be filled with doctors appointments, surgical post op checkups, physical therapy, massages, blood work appointments and trips to the drug store. Add in the usual - dance class for my daughter 2 times a week, Brandon's basketball games and practices, Sarah's softball practices, plus just helping Sarah keep up with her busy social life - and I was busy pretty much all day every day arranging for transportation for me and my children. Living without the ability to drive absolutely sucked. What sucked worse was being at the mercy of everyone I knew with a car. Once I had the ability to drive back again, life would be much simpler!
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