Ta Ta

10/12: The day I have been anticipating had arrived…surgery day! I felt so strangely calm. I just knew in my heart that I was making the right decision and I never second guessed my choice. I think that’s a great sign. I woke up and made everyone snuggle up with me extra hard while they still could. Tim drove me to the hospital and never left my side up until they wheeled my away for surgery. We checked in at 11:30 am and then it was nothing but paperwork and inserting needles and answering the same questions over and over again to the slew of nurses that kept coming in for various reasons. One nurse asked if there was anything special about me she should know and I responded thoughtfully, “I love cats and reading and I love tea.” Apparently she meant something more along the lines of if I needed a cane or other special needs things. Oops. I then asked if they had therapy animals and they confirmed that they did and they would be sure to have someone fluffy visit me after the surgery. Hooray! Finally it was show time and they gave me a shot of sedative and I said goodbye to Tim (not easy) and then we headed to the OR. My doctors sang me to sleep as they put on the anesthesia mask and it was really silly and calming. My surgery was about 5 hours long. They had to put a breathing tube down my throat because you can’t breathe on your own under anesthesia that long. (My throat is still sore from that.) Both of my surgeons were there, Dr. J who performed the mastectomy and Dr. Z who will be working on my breast reconstruction. They worked as a team during the operation. When Dr. J was finished removing all of my breast tissue on one side, Dr. Z came in behind her and inserted the spacer saline bags behind my pectoral walls. They worked in a circle and sewed me back up. My incisions are actually pretty small. They did not cut into my breast at all, because I chose to keep my nipple. This makes my risk about 1% higher of getting breast cancer. I figure if I get it at that point, it’s meant to be. The cuts are right under my breasts from about 6:00 to 9:00 on a clock face. I remember coming to in the recovery room with a few doctors and nurses standing around me, smiling and laughing. They all said that I was funny and sweet and they want to keep me and take me home. I have no recollection of anything I was saying to them. They wheeled me to the hospital room where I would be staying the night. I kept asking about Tim and how he was doing. I was so worried about his poor nerves while all this was happening! They finally got him after what felt like a million years and he came into the room with a giant stuffed dog and lots of hugs and kisses. He looked very relieved. Not too much else happened in the hospital. Lots of pain controlling medicines, lots of snacking finally! (You can’t eat for 12 hours before surgery. That may have been the hardest part of all of this for me! You can have my murderous boobs but don’t take my snacks away!) We had some classic horrible hospital sleep. Time stopped existing in there. I decided that instead of getting hung up over having these new scars on my body, to embrace them instead. The Bride of Frankenstein is a total babe, and she’s got stitches for days. So I humbly and woozily played tribute to her in the hospital with a black wig that I had painted white on the sides. They say laughter is the best medicine… I know I will heal faster than Wolverine because Tim and Matt are the silliest and most supportive team I could ever hope for.