So, the past week has been a bit of a whirlwind. De had her surgery on Tuesday: Bilateral Mastectomy, with immediate reconstruction using Alloderm.
Lessons learned for husband in waiting room:
- Don’t bother with a laptop. You wont use it, as you’ll be pacing too much
- Bring a spare battery, charging cable + brick, and charging pack for your phone. You will use your phone a lot
- Bring some snacks, and some cash.
- Don’t feel bad about leaving the waiting room. Leave your cell # with the receptionist/patient ally/care navigator, someone. They will call you if needed.
- Bring headphones, but be prepared to listen to music with one ear off. I was always worried I’d miss being called
- You probably wont watch movies. Music is where it’s all
- Pack light. You’ll have your wife’s stuff, as well as yours. You can run home for stuff. Don’t try to carry it all.
Thus far, day/night #1 was the hardest. She got out of surgery ~3PM, and was in her room ~4PM. That evening, she ate well. In fact, she was pissed she only got two chicken tenders in her meal hahahaha Also, her sister Crissy, BIL Jerry, and niece Marissa visited.
“Drugged up, but in good spirits”, is how her sister described it, and it was pretty spot on. De laughed a bit (That hurt), she bitched about not enough tenders, but otherwise, pretty OK.
That night, however, was pretty rough. Anesthesia was wearing off, and the pain was kicking in. The nurse team overnight was fighting to find a schedule/combo of pain medication to help her through it. Hats off to Michelle (I think) who was the night time nurse, and MC (Nurse assistant) in Wing 7W at Roswell. They definitely helped De through the overnight.
De finally relented, and got pain meds, which knocked her out (Morphine, norco, and muscle relaxers) at around 4AM. I ran home to change, see the dogs, and make sure the house didn’t burn down, overnight 🙂 Nomi was excited, until she realized it was just me lol. On the way back, I grabbed De a meat lover’s breakfast sandwich from A Plus near our house. Seriously, these things are the shit, and De loves them!
Marissa (Daytime nurse) was key in getting her pain managed, and getting De seen by the doctors doing rounds, and making sure her meds were in order, and we had a simplified discharge. That morning would have been hell without her. De ate most of her sandwich, and started seeing the various docs/nurses/aides as they came around (Breast and plastics doctors, physical therapist, home nurse rep, and some others. It was a blur, and I was working on about 2 hours of sleep, over a 48 hour period at this point. I really should have taken notes or something.
Day #2, at home, consisted on a lot of sleeping for De, and myself. Being put under isn’t what one would call “restful sleep”, so De pretty much slept unless it was med time, or incentive spirometer time (She hates this. Who knew breathing could tire someone out?). I ended up crashing about 3PM, late enough to miss Crissy’s call asking if we needed anything, and to let us know she was en route.
De’s sister Crissy has been an enormous help. Cooking dinner all week to a huge burden off of us, and she even did dishes more nights. Marissa coming along was a huge emotional boost for De as well.
So, day #3 was the nurse’s visit, which went great. De feels tons better knowing she will have an actual nurse checking on her at what they feel (Nurse and De combined) are critical care points. And, as the nurse warned, the visit exhausted De. She crashed around 8PM for the night. I also slept through my alarm, and was late on De’s meds by an hour.
Day #4: De is feeling tons better, at first. She gets to wash her hair (With my help). I’m a pro at stripping the drain lines, emptying the JP drains, measuring, writing amounts, and dosing out meds. We’ve got this! De made it upstairs, changed, felt human again. Proper shirt, shorts, whole nine. She visited her garden, and even felt like she could skip her noon norco, and sub in a 500 mg tylenol.
Bad move.
By 3PM, the pain was really bad. I asked her if she could pull until 4PM, which would only get her norco 2 hours early, and then crash soon for bed, once it wears off. Well, so far so good: 10:30PM, and it’s still working. So, she just needs to hang in until midnight.
So, here we are. Lessons learned…
Don’t go too far, too soon. She might have been able to skip the norco at noon, if she didn’t go upstairs, or out to the garden. Oh well. Tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll try again when she’s ready. As for me? I get to do grocery shopping all by my lonesome 🙂 Let’s see how bad I fuck this up? 😛