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I am 45 years old, Married to Sean for nearly 20 years and have 3 lovely children Hope is 16, Jack is 12 and Joe is 6.

Tuesday 27 June 2017

Noob

A couple of weeks ago I think I wrote; I'll see you on the other side. Well I am here, on the other side. 

As foreseen I've been to hell and back in the last fortnight. The expected tough parts have been just that...tough. With some added extras that have made it even tougher. 

I'm not even going to bore you with all the details, gory or otherwise, save for saying yet again I came across some incompetent, thoughtless medics who in the end I asked not to be allowed near me again. 

On the other hand I was cared for by some lovely, compassionate nurses; male and female, who were just fantastic. Nothing was too much trouble and they went that extra mile to make me feel ok whenever they could, physically and mentally e.g. toast and jam midnight feast 😋 My consultant is a lovely, caring softly spoken guy, not to mention a highly skilled micro surgeon, who came to see me everyday no matter what time he finished surgery. Which was 11.30pm one night and yes....he still came. 

The surgery was long and tough to wake up from. I always suffer badly from a sore throat after surgery but such a long one meant the tube to intubate me was down for several hours. The only 'perk' of this is eating scrambled egg, soup and jelly for the next few days! 

After 3 days on oxygen, first a mask then tube up my nose, it was so irritated and bleeding that I only lasted another day. I then battled to gets SATS over 90 at every set of observations, constantly being threatened with going back on it. So it was lots of deep breaths, wiggling the monitor etc and Bingo!

The surgery was 'successful' in that during 7 1/2 hours I was in theatre they removed belly tissue and skin known as 'the flap' (hence being cut from hip to hip....ouch). Removed the diseased breast and reconstructed my new boob (or as it's affectionally now known as Noob ;-) a great deal smaller (as requested!) I might add than the right one. Which will be operated on to be 'matched' in 3-6 months. In the meantime I've been given a soft prosthesis so I don't look lop sided! 

The most serious concern after this type of surgery is for the flap to fail.  If this is going to happen it usually does in the first 48 hours but you're closely monitored for a good 5 days. As they also reconnect the blood supply from the abdomen in Noob this is what usually fails...caused by clotting. Whilst in Critical Care they monitor Noob's temperature with a permanently connected sensor as well as manually taking it and checking appearance, together with obs every half hour for the first 24 then hourly for the next 24. Cue light on at each check, tight BP cuff, thermometer shoved in ear = zero sleep. But it's great to know how closely they keep an eye on you. 

Unfortunately it became clear quite quickly that Noob's skin wasn't healing as well as we'd hoped. I had a large blood blister drained a couple of days later and as time went on the area became necrotic, sadly the skin had not survived and had died. There were 2 options moving forward. Leave the necrotic area until it heals and quite literally drops off. This can take several weeks to happen and unfortunately time is not on my side. Any further active treatment needs to happen soon. This will be either more chemo and radiotherapy or 'just' radiotherapy. This is dependent on the pathology results from the surgery. These should be in this week and I'm hoping to receive these and the treatment plan next Monday

So the other option is to operate; debride (cut away) the dead tissue and tidy things up using a skin graft from my thigh. This will hopefully mean much quicker healing and my ability to move on to the next stage of treatment. This is the only option then for me so they planned it for this coming Thursday, 29th of June

So after a week seeing nothing more than the corner of a window and a fan in my face morning, noon and night to combat the heatwave - that I missed - I walked with my prosthetic leg and crutches out of the hospital. It may have been at snail's pace but it was upright and walking!!! Knowing it was only 6 days respite until Mr Akali sees me again ready for the following day's surgery. 

So we're in yet another 'limbo land' waiting for Noob Surgery Round 2, but enabling my stomach to start healing. So I need to focus on that and resting; which isn't hard as it REALLY hurts to move and use crutches and a wheelchair. I'm trying to manage on slow release morphine in the morning and evening, also regular codeine, paracetemol and ibuprofen. I'm still at that stage where I'm counting the hours and minutes until I can take the next meds. Hopefully when this surgery is out of the way I can return to this stage and even beyond it to steal myself for more 'therapy' - chemo, radio or otherwise. 










4 comments:

  1. U are doing so well lass . Dont know were u get the strength from and i see u have had surgery and come round just fine . Super women keep it up. As hard as it is u are doing great xxxx

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  2. By the way its claire freeman

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  3. We used to come to your baby signing, just seen your blog. So sad for you, but you are a fighter, hope things improve soon.

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    1. Ah thanks guys sorry only just seen these replies!!! x

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