My BRCA Journey

As you know, I wasn’t sleeping. I was filling my days with reading books on my Kindle or Ipad and trying to find comfortable positions that didn’t force my drains to move at all. I could not take a full shower and am forever thankful for shower heads that are detachable. My mom learned to wash my hair in the sink since I couldn’t lift my arms and I got brave enough to empty my drains.

I had cabin fever and felt downright nasty. I daydreamed about a full body shower and picking up my toddler. A week later I was at my post-opp and in walked the PA and an intern. I was sweating. Seriously, every inch of me was covered in moisture. He asked for permission for the intern to be in the room and I warned him that I was nervous and was sure I would use some colorful language. Wasn’t an issue for him – he said he was from New York and his family is Puerto Rican so I wouldn’t offend him. 

The medical assistant had taken off my bra that had to stay on for a week and helped me remove the itchy cotton bandages. I could see what my new boobs looked like and was just glad it was over. I won’t lie, it was nice to see them so much higher and for the record – yup your nipples are smaller once they move them up. I looked at where my drains jutted out for the first time and didn’t feel so great – more of me sweating. 

My PA, Rich, was absolutely amazing. ::I will always have a huge lovefest for Richard, he is a rockstar who responded to ALL of my questions, let me say Fuck and held my hand when I panicked:: He walked me through the drain removal and got me breathing in a pattern – once I took a breath in, out came my right drain. It wasn’t painful, just unfamiliar. Once he went to the left side I thought I was prepared – heck no. That one hurt. It burned and took longer to escape the confines of my body. The best news was I could go home and shower the next day.

The next week, I knew something was up. I was cleared to remove some of the loose steri-strips. I cut away some and eventually was told I could remove them all. Well, I nearly fainted. I went to remove the one that was between my nipples and the bottom of the anchor (the straight line connecting the two) and I saw something white. The smell reminded me of old, spoiled breast milk – real cute. I called my mom in and she said she got a good look and it looked fine – she didn’t but wanted to reassure me.

The next morning I hyped myself up. I was READY to see what was going on. Instead, I nearly fainted again and started calling plastic surgery, advice nurses, had a friend in another department try to track down Rich or my surgeon. I was scared out of my mind. Eventually, wound care called and said Rich would meet me there and they would look me over. I am a talker. If I’m not talking you should probably be concerned. Suddenly, the car ride to Kaiser turned me mute. My mom was just as silent as I. I was certain I would be admitted or something because it looked like part of me was opened up and damn if it didn’t smell horrible.

I got called into wound care and lost it. Started panicking and didn’t want them touching me. In came Rich who held my hand and said he was going to walk me through it all. I let him remove the steri-strips and he let me know I had non-viable tissue (hello dead skin) and that he would just remove those spots. Wound care told me I would need to change dressing on it in hopes Xeroform would close it up. I was sent on my way with Xeroform and had to rely on my mom to change the dressings for me for 2 weeks. The first day, she looked green changing it. The second day she admitted it was absolutely disgusting and was glad to see an improvement. 

Unfortunately, this put me out of work longer and I was so bored. What I had been told was I would be out 2-3 weeks and then got put out for 4. This necrosis knocked me on my butt and I ended up being out for 6 weeks.

I checked in weekly with wound care and was basically cleared. Again, nothing is smooth sailing for this girl right? My stitches wouldn’t dissolve and were pushing to the surface – nothing to stress about, but it was a constant panic for those 6 weeks.

I went in and saw Rich one last time and thanked him for responding to all of the random pictures and messages I would send at odd hours. The man must have gotten tired of me asking “is this normal?” We had a serious talk about my next procedures which made me feel so much better. 

Weeks later I saw my plastic surgeon and she agreed I needed to wait longer than 6 weeks to get my mastectomy since I take longer to heal. I went into the holidays with such relief that I had finished phase 1 of 3.