A mastectomy removes the tumor, the breast tissue and all the nerves connected with it. I was unaware if any sensation in my chest would return. My procedure was the mastectomy and tissue expander inserted in the same operation. My surgery recovery was very painful for weeks.
Agonizing. Surprisingly dullish. ‘Dullish’ because my whole left side was numb. That fact caught me completely off-guard — if any doctor had forewarned me I’d forgotten. Within two months, Dr. Korentager did say the inner pectoral muscle tissue of the mastectomy site needed a chance to heal from the initial surgery. Upon my first follow up, I understood why.
My chest muscles had to stretch around the tissue expander as each 50 cc’s of saline fluid was injected weekly prior to my implants transfer surgery (scheduled for mid summer). The whole reconstruction timetable was much longer, though my doctors never tried telling me otherwise. They simply did their jobs throughout the whole process and I knew my progress would go according to how my own body and spirit healed … my long run depended on the short runs, not set in stone, but progressed how I felt … breathe.
My skin stretched with each injection, much the same as stretching from breastfeeding. A breastfeeding mother knows the uncomfortable feeling of breasts full of milk, the painful urgency to empty the milk. I recall that tenderness; however, it could be relieved by a suckling baby. The tissue expander stretching could not. At least by that time, I had progressed beyond my depression and could think about the breastfeeding comparison.
With each injection, it got stretched more, tight as a drum. And I mean solid-as-a-football-tight. Hurt worse than the mastectomy did! As the muscles healed, they cramped. It was intense, sharp pain much the same as labor pains or a shin splint cramp. Copious amounts of Valium alleviated the cramps, to relax the chest muscles, thus, as my pain eased, I slept better. Once I got accustomed to the initial injections.
Mary Kate dealt with other women’s reconstruction as well. My mastectomy was no less of a healing process than for others. She’s definitely in the right profession, most respectful and full of humor. Her impish smile was very contagious kidding me about going bigger with new boobs. It was great to laugh in her office.
I felt at ease amidst other families, patients due for other surgeries, those teens and womenfolk whose unknowns were just as valid as mine, and those breast cancer patients, women most assuredly reeling from more intense treatment than I was. Their ages ranged from late teens to older than me. The idea of having a double mastectomy and chemo and radiation before turning twenty is mortifying. My heart ached for those young gals. Nevertheless, no doubt the doctor/patient environment was the most comfortable I’d ever been in. I felt privileged in their hands.
How did I feel?
Feelings ran the gamut of psychological, emotional and physiological. In retrospect, I was like a car being hauled to the repair shop for an overhaul after a near fatal crash, of which causing deep emotional havoc. I was a mess. So emotional I felt compelled to spill it out ‘on paper’ for everyone to read how fucking tragic every facet of breast cancer feels. I would be fine — but I didn’t know it yet. Like as a child falling off my bike, I got back on and rode home crying for Mom to bandage up my bloody knees.
A teenage girl innocently starts her monthly period. My daughter refers to it as her monster, subsequently women all have dealt with that damn monster and will be alright, but in those first months we don’t know it yet, harsh as it sounds. We all must go through it. That is a woman’s life. We just deal.
Just something else to deal with … I’m not Wikipedia … an astute science student in a prior life, my condition was incomprehensible, the gravity of how all of this would affect my life was overwhelming.
IMAGES
I didn’t take many photos during the first month because I was too grossed out. Real photos of breast cancer are very gross and I got queasy viewing those few medical images I found online. It is not within a young reader’s understanding; they made me sick to my stomach. I stared at them ad nauseum. As much as I studied decay and slimy frogs in biology in college. Seeing images was reality. And inside me. By the grace of God, my breast cancer was not as invasive or massive as images I found. I felt relief. And horrified.
At first, cancer thoughts were too horrific for me. Nevertheless, I could not imagine to endure such despondency forever. My impulse being a good-natured Christian woman rebelled against poignant thoughts that filled me with such lugubriosity. A lifetime of heroics, now facing down death from the inside out, my innate will to live kicked in.
My survival of breast cancer once and for all really wasn’t complicated as much as non-negotiable. It wasn’t even a conscious thought. I told y’all I’m a stubborn, hard-headed Irish-German Midwesterner. Only time I give up a fight I’ll be dead… Hmm, I learned something – my folks’d be proud.
Dealing with the day to day struggle of loss of my strength, I cried more than I have in years. Granted, not always in fear, but the onslaught of my own moodiness kicked my ass.
I was negative for the BRCA1 mutation… genetics is tied together.
I get it. After exhaustive research to all known medical causes, there was no rhyme or reason that I got breast cancer. That one, the dreaded clincher didn’t apply to me. Dr. Jew assured me my breast cancer was attributed more to environmental than inherited. (And the genetic test to refute or conclude definitively only cost $10,000. Ouch.) Genetic mutation is fascinating but only 3.3% women have inheritable breast cancer.
Pathology report: my heart pounded
I was initially diagnosed with Stage 2 (IDC) Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Then Hallelujah! the pathology report was reduced to Stage 1 after the mastectomy tissue and three lymph nodes were analyzed. See how easy it is to read the facts? My husband and I heaved a huge sigh of relief to get on with the months of reconstruction.
A myriad of possibilities causes breast cancer. My oncologist confirmed that my mother died of metastatic breast cancer, so affected my ignorant belief that I would not lose the other breast without the effectiveness of Tamoxifen.
Studies’ results in medical journals convinced me of the necessity of Tamoxifen. I don’t distrust its use, nor question my prognosis made by Drs. Jew and Elia to prescribe it for me. It’s one thing to read about someone else but it’s another worm entirely to put yourself under the microscope. Genetics is huge and like Mars exploration — it presents a big I wonder IF.
WOMAN IN RECON 