A Success

I am absolutely amazed at how successful this surgery was. It was definitely the combination of so many people helping, praying and the artful hands of an incredible surgeon. We left our house at 5:30am and checked in to the hospital just before six. Keith waited for the boys to wake up and surprised them with pancakes before taking them to preschool. After checking in, I was moved to pre-op where I was prepped for surgery. This included 2 hours of waiting and repeating to every doctor, nurse and anesthesiologist which side we were operating on. My surgeon even signed my chest on the correct side. Brian said, "I thought only rock stars get to sign boobs, so today you are the rock star". I went in around 8:30am.I woke up in the recovery room at about 10:20 am and actually had the same nurse I had back in October. I woke up easily and we chatted about our kids and school. Brian, my mom, Adam and Baby Tyler were able to come in shortly, but then had to leave the small area. I was still a little groggy and slept on and off and managed to steal my phone from Brian to text updates to a few people. The hospital was very full so we had to wait for a room to be cleaned. My nurse really wanted to get me into a single room, so we waited. She eased me into eating with ice chips and then grape popsicles (which at that point tasted like heaven). The recovery room wasn't used to having people in there for a prolonged period of time so when my appetite came back I had saltines and graham crackers, which didn't bode well for my already dry mouth.

They finally had a single room available at we headed off at about 3:30 pm. I was greeted with visitors and was feeling great. The surgeon had told me that the recovery process would be easy, but I wasn't really sure what to expect. I had a pain pill at 10:30 am when I got out of surgery and didn't have one until the next morning. I kept asking if I was still feeling good because of the anesthesia, but the nurses assured me that the drugs had worn off long ago. There was a little tightness across the bandage area, but other than that I was able to move my arm and enjoy my visitors.

Brian brought the boys in for a quick visit. Sam didn't skip a beat and climbed up to share ice cubes and cuddle. Jack was a little more apprehensive and hid in Brian's legs for awhile. My mom surprised him with a doctor's kit that she said the doctor sent to him and then he started getting a little more excited. He was giving us shots and wanted to know why he couldn't spend the night with us. My pain level was still really low, but I was feeling a little nauseous. I had tried to drink a smoothie and it didn't sit well. I took an anti-nausea medication and got a little sick before it kicked in. Luckily Nurse Sarah was there to tend to her patient :-) we didn't even call the real nurse in. After the medication kicked in, I was able to eat some amazing won ton soup that Alex brought and enjoyed visiting until about 8pm.

Brian and I quickly fell asleep, but it true hospital style were woken up every 2 hours to beeping IV lines. Surprisingly, we woke up in the morning feeling rested and my mom brought coffee and breakfast sandwiches. The surgeon's assistant made rounds in the morning and described in more detail the surgery. They ended up doing a T incision where they removed a football shaped piece of skin from the front of my chest. They sutured from the inside to the outside and when they got to the the middle he pulled the excess skin from under the arm in to meet the other making a sideways T. This will help in lessening the chance of lymphodema. I am at a high risk for lymphodema-permanent arm swelling :-( so I need to take measures to prevent this. I am already doing small exercises and keeping my arm elevated. We were instructed on how to clean the two drains that come out of the incision and then were ready to

be released.

We left the hospital at 11:30 just a little over 24 hours after coming out of surgery. I was feeling good and very excited to get home to the comfort of my bed and couch :-)