2 weeks out of surgery!

Holy! I seriously can’t believe it has already been 2 weeks and I am well on my way to being healed. I will try and fill in as many details I can about surgery (now that I have gone through it) and enlighten you with details about the reconstruction (pretty cool)!

So surgery day ended up being pretty relaxing in the morning. I had to be at the hospital for 5:30am with a surgery time of 7:30am. I was in a very relaxed, peaceful state of mind going into surgery and I think that really helped me, AJ and Mom feel better. So I hung out in the pre-op area (at the Mc Caig tower) for about an hour and got changed into some super nice hospital wear (slippers included), answered some questions about my overall health and tried to find some humor in the situation. Around 6:45 we walked over to the Foothills main building to the waiting area for the OR. After some discussions with my anesthetist, surgeons and nurse I headed in at 7:45am. At the beginning of all the talks about surgery we were told it would be approx. 4 hours. It ended up being about 5.5 hours under anesthetic and 4.45 hours of actual surgery time. Some of the following surgery details you may or may not be interested in so if you generally don’t like too many details now is the time to skip to the next part.

So they started by having my breast surgeon remove my left breast. Basically removing a breast means removing everything (nipple, breast tissue) except the skin. The skin isn’t considered breast tissue because there is a layer of fat and other tissue that separate the skin from any breast tissue.  After he finished removing my left side he moved over to begin the right one. While he was doing the right one my plastic surgeon inserted a tissue expander underneath my leftover skin and pec muscle on the left side. I have started calling them water balloons because that’s kind of what they are. Basically they are deflated implants with a small metal port used for injections. I can’t tell you why is it placed under the pec muscles but it must have something to do with not enough tissue between the implant and skin otherwise. Anyways after he removed the right breast they flipped me over and began to cut out a piece of my latissimus dorsi muscle/fat/skin. They were doing this to replace some damaged tissue underneath my armpit and right breast from radiation. Scar tissue from radiation doesn’t stretch well for implants and can cause some complications so she recommended this as a best option. I find it fascinating how they do this part of the surgery. They remove and isolate the tissue from my back but keep the main blood supply under my armpit connected so it’s never  ‘removed’ from my body. Then they make a tunnel underneath my armpit to bring the tissue forward – this way my body won’t reject it and I won’t have to worry about dealing with a transplant, like I thought I would.  It’s pretty cool to think that the muscle at the front of my chest is actually from my back (and still attached!) So after moving that to the front she again added a tissue expander underneath the muscle and skin and stitched me up.  When I woke up from surgery I was obviously in a lot of pain and couldn’t figure out why I still had boobs (small yes but I had something there none the less). I came to find out later at my follow up that they started the stretching process immediately and added 180ml of saline to my left expander and 120ml to the right. Because of the extra tissue on my right they didn’t need as much saline as it doesn’t need to be stretched as much.

Recovery has been going ok. The 24 hours following surgery I was very nauseous, couldn’t hold anything down and had to contend with a urinary catheter. But after that was removed and I could start holding food down again things started getting better. Little by little I made walks around the unit and started sitting up more. It was tough at first because not only was I in obvious pain from the surgery I had 3 Jackson Pratt drains to deal with. For anyone that has never had a drain after surgery – these things are a pain in the a**. And I had 3. They are long tubes that are inserted through a small hole below your surgical site(s) that drain into a grenade type of suction bulb. Every 12 hours or when they are full you have to empty the fluid and measure it. This decides when they can come out. Generally they need to be producing below 20ml of fluid over 24 hours before they will remove them.  They sometimes cause more discomfort then anything. Where they go into your body, if move the wrong way or pull on them (they are held in by a stitch) they burn. It’s a very weird sensation but I think it would feel like a hot lighter touching your skin. Hurts like hell.  If I wanted to leave the house I had to wear a big sweater and find a way to pin them up so people couldn’t see them. At home they were pinned to my pants most of the time. When I showered I would wear the tie from my housecoat around my waist and attach them to it. I couldn’t lift my arms, couldn’t drive – nothing. It’s very frustrating. But like anything else you do what you have to do and survive. I started to get a little stir crazy (although I had lots of visitors) while they were in and did some cleaning around the house (the surgeons say not to). I felt a bit more human when I was able to do a bit of work.

So 13 days later on Monday Aug 20 I had my follow up with my plastic surgeon. I was super nervous. For anyone that remembers last surgery, the drain (I only had 1) hurt so much when my family doctor tried to take it out that I ended up at urgent care. I (accidently) kicked my doctor after an hour of trying and we both kind of gave up.  So needless to say I was pretty anxious and worked up by the time my surgeon walked in. They all came out without me feeling them at all! Apparently there are a couple different kinds of drains and she uses the ones that aren’t flared. Which means my other surgeon probably used drains that were – who would use drains that are flared!???? I felt so relieved after – it was one of the worst parts of surgery last time and with 3 this time it could have easily been a mess. So after they were out she decided that I would be fine to tolerate an expansion of the tissue expanders. She took a little handheld magnet device which located the port and left a little mark on the skin as to where the needle needed to go. She then inserts a very small needle (skin is numb so didn’t feel it) and injected 60ml into each side. I couldn’t feel it fill but definitely felt tightness at the end of the injection. Because the expanders are under the pecs it causes them to stretch which can be uncomfortable but only lasts overnight.

So now I will be going in weekly to have 100ml injected into each side every time. This process is a lot quicker then I previously thought it would be. I’m kind of excited to see the results! I will provide a count of how much saline has been injected into the expanders. Right now I have 240ml in the left one and 180ml in the right. I think (and I’m probably wrong) that I will be around 600 – 700ml of saline before she calls it quits and plans the next surgery. Maybe I should take bets on the final number? Hmm…

Last blog with my mamms!

So I have been crazy busy trying to finish up my summer before surgery!

I will start with the weekend I was supposed to go on a great camping trip with the family as a last relaxing time before surgery. We headed out on the afternoon of July 12^th with the thought that I could enjoy some golf and down time. Well that didn’t happen. We drove up to the trailer (Pat and AJ headed out a few hours before we did), Mom went inside, brought the dogs out and closed the door. First, Broc and Baxter (her male) don’t like each other at all – so a dog fight happened and Mom stuck her hand in the middle and got bit. We decided to separate them but had to grab something in the trailer first – it was locked. With the keys inside. No spares around. We had been there for 10 minutes. So we called a locksmith who drove over and thankfully was very good at picking locks and 10 seconds later we were in! Anyways so after a non-eventful evening AJ and I enjoyed a gorgeous day at the Golden Golf Course on Friday morning (I shot 89 and AJ shot 79). We also got a call from our good friends, Monica & Jason that her water had broken that morning. We had told them that if she went into labour before his Mom arrived from New Zealand we would be around for support and help with the animals. She wasn’t actually due until August 1 and we thought they were lying as a funny joke while we were out of town. After they convinced us the baby was coming we tried to figure out when we would go back. Being the first child we all assumed it would be awhile – especially considering she wasn’t having contractions. So we went to Kicking Horse ski hill to enjoy a lunch and see if we could get a peek at Boo, the bear that lives there (we did!) On our way back down the gondola Jason texted us to say she was 6cm dilated and she wasn’t going home. So we went back to camp, packed up as quickly as we could and rushed back to Calgary. At 9:06pm on July 13 Jordyn Ava Kyono-Hughes was born.  Congrats guys! Gorgeous little lady!

After that exciting weekend it was time to get ready for The Weekend To End Women’s Cancers walk. The walk is for the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the money you raise is donated to the female cancer of your choice. So obviously we choose breast and are happy to say our team (The Rack Pack) raised $13,010. Nice job ladies! So this weekend consist of 2 days of walking. Day 1 is 33km and day 2 about 27km. With Mom on her poor sore planter fasciitis foot, Quinn being an all-star and myself complaining about everything (seriously how did I make it through chemo) we completed the whole 60km with a lot of tears and a lot of supporters there to greet us! It was a wonderful weekend with the girls and too great to see how strong we all can be when we do it together J. We also found a new friend that had nobody to walk with – Cynthia is an amazing young lady (a horticulturist) and we had a lot of fun asking (and bugging her) about different plants. So nice to meet you!

Other than thinking and preparing for surgery (get to that in a sec) we have been spending time with family and friends. Last Friday we spent out at the Cottonwood Golf Course with the Hart family. It was a great way to connect with the family and spend an afternoon – even if we did have to wait out a half hour storm in a shack. The following evening we spent at Kim & Corey’s engagement/house warming party. I love catching up with all the ladies; it’s a really great supportive group of people. Congrats guys! And 2 of those special ladies cooked up some frozen meals for AJ and I to help a little bit while I heal. You have no idea how much that means to us and how much that will help! Thank you so much!

So now let’s get on to the gross stuff. The surgery. For anyone that isn’t aware of the surgery I am receiving (I say that like I’m thankful HA) is a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with a latissimus dorsi flap on the right breast and immediate reconstruction (kind of).  So that’s a lot of words that don’t mean that much so I will break it down. The surgeons will start with removing both of my breast and all the breast tissue – I am doing this so I never have to deal with cancer again. Then the plastic surgeon will take a 15cm piece of muscle/skin from my latissimus dorsi and replace my damaged scar tissue from radiation on the right breast. After that’s all done then they will insert tissue expanders underneath the skin/muscle. All this is happening in one surgery so I will be under for about 4 hours and in recovery about 2.5 – 3 hours after. It will be a long (sore) day. But well worth it. After I heal from surgery I will visit my plastic surgeon every week or two to have saline inserted into the tissue expander until the size I’m happy with (taking opinions now!) is achieved and at that time the expanders will be replaced with real implants. So after all that being said it’s probably going to suck. The flap part of the surgery is considered a transplant so I will most likely be in the hospital for up to a week just to make sure my body accepts the new tissue (even though it is my tissue to begin with). But if I didn’t do it and got another cancer I would feel so stupid for having that chance to change my life and not taking it. And after everything I have gone through with the ones I have – I don’t like them anymore lol so time for a new pair!

Any who – that surgery is tomorrow (Aug 7) at 7:35am. We are supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30. So I will check back in with my blog probably in a couple weeks! Thanks again everyone for your support through everything.