Pre-Surgery Jitters

I am an anxious kind of person.  Over the course of an average day, I worry over hundreds of ultimately meaningless things.  Is my shirt on right or is it inside out?  Do my shoes match?  Did I remember my lunch?  What if there's a fire drill and it's raining and I forget my umbrella in my office? Such things run in the background of my head all the time, and I've learned to ignore most of the commentary.

And then I got cancer.  It seemed as though the litany of stuff to worry about had had the volume turned up to 11 in my brain.  Even after all the radiation and chemotherapy, even after the last PET scan indicated that I was cancer free, it continued, and it's been more difficult to tune out.  For example, I am getting rheumatoid arthritis in the fingers of my hand.  Typical of people my age, that things like joints start to deteriorate. Not a big deal.  Yet when I noticed that the index finger on my left hand was swollen, my instinctive reaction was to think it was cancer.  It took me two days to talk myself from the ledge of that particular cognitive process.

I don't say these things out loud, I just turn them over in my head until I can fashion some sense from them.  There's just been so much emotional turmoil over the past two years that my anxiety level has just not been prepared for.  I hope that everything calms down soon, because I'm starting to get annoyed with myself.   

In the meantime, while you read this, I'm going to be in surgery having another mastectomy and breast reconstruction.  I am very nervous about what is going to happen and how things are going to be once I wake up.  You would think that I would be used to surgeries by now.  You would be wrong.

Every time, I am terrified.  And yet, that's the path I have chosen.  Why?  To get healthy.  For that little boy that lives with me, who is counting on me to be around for awhile.  For my husband, who is my rock.  For lots of reasons, even for myself.  If I focus on that, maybe I won't be so scared.

Keep sending positive thoughts, and I'll be back when I can.  

And Then I Tooted

Last week found me heading over to the nearest radiology center to have a chest CT scan.  I didn't want to have a CT scan, as claustrophobic as I am. However, the chest x-ray required before my surgery next week showed a "density", and the surgeon wanted to make sure that I hadn't accidentally inhaled a chicken bone in my post chemo eating.  Preparing for this surgery has required EKGs, blood draws, and x-rays--way more than I had with my initial diagnosis.  

I filled out the paperwork asking if I am, or might be, pregnant for the 433rd time in the last three years.  Then I waited for someone to call my name.  The lady lead me to a dressing room and asked me to change into a gown.  Unfortunately they only had an extra large gown.  It took me five minutes to figure out how to tie it.  Then it was time for the insertion of the IV, through which the special contrast dye would be administered. 

I was escorted to the CT room by a lovely lady who was very cheerful and energetic.  She helped me up onto the table, chattering about what she was going to do and what was going to happen.  I was initially monosyllabic in my responses; I was focusing on my anxiety.  I remember the technician saying something about the dye making me feel as though I had to pee, and then I was heading toward the machine. 

Fortunately for my claustrophobia, the scan was only of my chest area, so my head never went into the danger zone.  I was so relieved that I was finished that I started talking to the tech about my doctor's edict regarding caffeine.  She commiserated with me as she removed the needle from my arm.  I continued talking as she came over to my side and gripped my arm to help me up.  I clenched my abdominal muscles and sat up.

And then I tooted. 

Little kids have an advantage over adults.  Their bodily functions are considered cute.  When a two year old passes gas, everyone giggles and coos over them.  I'm fifty, and that is well beyond the "farts are cute" stage.  I froze at the sound, appalled. 

"I'm so sorry!"  I said to the nice technician, who probably hears lots of toots over the course of her job. It's likely one of the side effects of the dye.  She didn't even blink as she finished helping me up and opened the door.  I was still horrified, but I managed to find my way back to the dressing room and change.  I texted my husband, hoping for some sympathy. 

"I tooted when they were helping me up after the CT scan. I can never go back there."

And Larry, my supportive and loving husband, texted back:

"LOL!!! Instead of giving a hoot, you gave a toot!" 

He's lucky he was in another town, or I might have punched him for that. 

The Caffeine Separation

I am cancer free at the moment.  I still have at least two more surgeries in store, at least this year.  In the next two weeks I head for the hospital once again.  I'll be having another mastectomy, and reconstruction of both breasts using some of my tummy flab.  I'll be hospitalized for FIVE days, which is something I'm still getting my brain around.  I'm a terrible patient.

As if that weren't bad enough, they informed me today that I cannot have any caffeine for the next five weeks.  The nurse explained why in great detail. I could see her mouth moving.  I have no idea what she said. My brain was having a tiny meltdown. 

WHAT?!!!  I NEED MY COFFEE!!!!  NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The rest of the visit was a blur, and I was glad that Larry was with me, since I was not in any condition to drive.  We drove over to the hospital so they could draw blood, etc., in preparation for the surgery.  Larry was asking me questions about the visit, but I was stuck.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I have a very consistent routine.  I get out of bed, turn off the alarm, go down the stairs and TURN ON THE COFFEE POT.  Then I get a cup and wait for enough magical goodness to drip into the pot for my first, and only cup of coffee.   I sit in the quiet before the rest of the house wakes up and sip my drink of caffeine, and then I start my day. 

Now that small joy is gone.  The quiet moment will still be there, but it won't be the same with a glass of water.   What's more, caffeine withdrawal will put me in a grumpy mood, and nobody needs to deal with the fallout from that.  I may as well put up orange cones around my desk.  

I need to keep track of the end result.  It's just a temporary separation.  I can go back to my normal routine after five weeks. It's easy to get caught up in these little bumps in the road on the way to healthy.  I should be used to the bumps, right?  I should just roll over them without batting an eye after all this time.  It's just that throughout my cancer treatments, I've tried to have as normal a life as possible, and my daily cup of coffee was part of that. 

*sigh*

Routine Surgery

Last week, at 7:34am in the morning, my husband drove me to a hospital in Alamo Heights.  There was rush hour traffic to contend with, but we made it to the hospital in time for me to be sent back to pre-op with minimal fuss.  I was here to have yet another surgery related to my cancer.

Because I have the BRCA1 genetic mutation, my chances of getting ovarian cancer were pretty high.  My oncologist recommended that I have all of the plumbing removed, and my Ob-Gyn said that he would do the surgery.

"I've got a robot," were his exact words.

"Do you know how many times I've heard that line? " I responded. After 30-plus years, I can joke with my doctor in this manner without him taking offense.  I later learned that this robot, named Da Vinci, is some sort of state of the art robot that allows for hysterectomies and such to be performed laproscopically, with minimal down time and faster healing.  That sounded good to me.

So here I was.  I signed the forms, spoke to the anesthesiologist and the OR nurse, they administered a little Versed to relax me, and I was wheeled to the OR, babbling away, just like I have for the past five or six surgeries.  Versed is an awesome drug to someone like me with anxiety issues; for a few moments, all is right with the world.  I usually babble as they wheel me into the surgical room, and I help them out by moving my round self onto the surgical table.  I usually am out before they put the breathing mask on my face.  Most people don't remember anything after they're given Versed; it's called "Milk of Amnesia" for a reason.  Most people don't remember.

I do.

Which is how I know that the gel pad on the surgical table was ice cold.  How I know that the person holding the mask on my face was pressing too hard. I pushed the mask away, and I know that I said not to push so hard.  I tried to tell him that I was claustrophobic, he was freaking me out by pressing so hard.  I remember this clearly.

But I couldn't tell him, because I was slowly being paralyzed.   I could feel my neck and jaw losing sensation, and suddenly I had no control over me.  I was still aware. I started to panic, because when you're paralyzed you have not the slightest control over your own breathing.  The comforting rhythm of your chest rising and falling is gone, and you don't know if this is it, this is the end of your life. In my head I floundered a little, thinking of things left undone, unsaid.  We always think we have more time.

My last thought before I lost consciousness was of my father, a nurse anesthetist, who long ago explained to me that they paralyze people before inserting the breathing tube.  This time they just didn't give me enough of whatever to knock me out before the paralytic started to work.  I grabbed onto that, an anchor.

"This is normal," I thought, just before the lights went out.

I Am A Terrible Cyborg

When the surgeon stated that he would be inserting a mediport in my chest,  my mind just breezed right by the whole topic.  A mediport is a device that allows blood to be drawn and chemotherapy administered in one central location, to eliminate multiple needle sticks.  Also, chemo is not kind to veins, so the larger veins are better for handling those drugs. I got that, but I didn't.  The idea of having a block of plastic inserted in my chest was there, of course, but it wasn't real, or I didn't really want to deal with it at the time. 

Even then, my brain thought a mediport looked like this:

 When it actually looks like this:

When I came out of surgery, and could feel a tube going from this hard round thing in my chest up into my neck, I kind of freaked out.  Tubes?  Nobody said anything about tubes!  I'm a "worst case scenario" person when it comes to some things, and having plastic items inserted into parts of your body brought my anxiety to a boiling point.  Even though intellectually I understood the reasons for the mediport, my emotions did not.  I kept having dreams of the tube in my neck suddenly bursting out of my jugular in the middle of a meeting, or being in a car accident and having the port shattered by an air bag, or lots of other fun scenarios.  I'm sure that my surgeon regretted ever giving me his cell phone number.

And then I just got used to it.  It was certainly much easier and convenient to have them insert a needle into the port than it would have been getting a vein punctured every time. They numbed the area, so I didn't even feel the needle pinch.  Nobody else in the chemo lab seemed to be freaking out over their mediports like I was, and my anxiety seemed silly, even for me.  My worries moved to the back of my head once the side effects of the chemo became very severe, and I was grateful to have the mediport.

I got this cyborg thing, I decided.  I could do this.  Maybe they could just install my phone/computer underneath my skin on my forearm, so that I could just have it with me all the time.  At night I would just "plug in" and recharge.  Easy, right?  I could have some sort of remote feature that let me set the coffee maker to run from my fingertips while I changed the channel on the television. I could unlock and start my car by pointing my finger!  Having some plastic or metal parts could Indeed make life easier in some ways, I thought.

Then one day, the mediport wouldn't work.  They could inject stuff in, like saline, but nothing was coming out.  The nurse worked on me for almost an hour, pumping enough saline into the port for a small aquarium.  She got a little rough in her frustrations, pumping on the syringe and getting nothing but air.   My anxieties came flooding back, because who wouldn't be concerned that the vein right next to your heart is not doing what it is supposed to?   The nurses weren't freaking out, because this happens to them all the time, but I had to take a Xanax. 

The mediport has bugged me ever since.  At first the area around the port became tender, like a bruise.  Understandable, considering.  But the pain persisted, and the tube leading up my chest into my neck seemed swollen, like a rope.  Over the last weeks of chemo, I could feel the tube in my neck every time I turned my head.  My surgeon gave me antibiotics, in case there was an infection,  and explained that sometimes mediports get tiny cracks in them that cause issues.  If I could just hang on until chemo was over, he would take it out, no problem. Outpatient surgery. 

Chemo is over.  My oncologist wanted me to wait a couple of months, and I gave it a good try.  But the area started hurting again, and I feel like I have a nylon rope underneath my skin.  And I just don't feel right with it in there. It's foreign and not truly part of me.  It never was.  I'm not cut out to be a cyborg.  Having plastic or metal parts might work for the Terminator guy, but not for me.  Tomorrow, if everything goes the way I want it, the mediport will be gone, and I can go back to being a non-cyborg, semi-normal, non-descript human type once more.

12 Lines About Yesterday

Lately I seem to have become someone who spends a great deal of time in hospital beds.

Something I would have liked to have avoided entirely, but that's not going to happen. 

So yesterday found me in pre-op, naked except for a thin hospital gown, sitting in a hospital bed.

Yesterday found me answering routine questions about whether I'd eaten or drank anything in the last 24 hours and whether I'd been to West Africa in the last two weeks.

Yesterday found me holding my arm out for the applications of many colored plastic bracelets indicating my various drug allergies, latex allergies, and a warning that this particular limb was off limits until further notice.

Yesterday found me wincing as they tried for an hour to find a "good" vein that didn't collapse when they tried to get an IV started.

Yesterday found me hopped up on albuterol from a pre-surgery breathing treatment designed to help me wake up post-surgery without the huge asthma attack from the last time. 

Yesterday found me listening carefully as my surgeon explained about taking additional tissue where the tumor had extended beyond the "margins" of what had been removed last time.

Yesterday found me completely creeped out by the description of how the surgeon planned to insert the mediport by which my chemotherapy will be delivered, and very glad that I would not be awake for that.

Yesterday found me laughing at my anesthesiologist as he asked me if I wanted him to use the "big hammer" or the "little hammer" to knock me out. 

Yesterday found me telling my husband that I loved him as they wheeled me back to the operating room to begin. 

And yesterday I woke up from surgery in yet another hospital bed, happy to still be alive, even under the circumstances. 



Head over to Mamakat's Absitively Wonderful Writer's Workshop.  The prompt I used was 5.) Write a post in just 12 lines.

Snoresville

I love my sleep. It is extremely vital to those around me that I am well-rested, because I tend to be just a bit cranky when I am tired. Like the head spinning scene in The Exorcist cranky. I can survive one night without enough sleep, but after that I become Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo.

Unfortunately, I married a snorer. The man I fell in love with just so happens to sound like an old buzz saw going full bore through a pile of logs at the toothpick factory. Night after night I found myself with a pillow over my head, trying to sleep, while my sweetie snored away. Except when he didn't.

Often the snoring would stop...because Larry stopped breathing. He had apnea. I was in a quandry. Either I didn't sleep because of the snoring, or I didn't sleep because he stopped breathing. Either way was not healthy for our relationship. I asked my husband to go see a doctor, and he tried to make excuses for not going. I've never understood the male reluctance to see a doctor; I was less than sympathetic.

"Go see the damn doctor," I told him. "I am not waking up next to a dead body."

He went. The doctor ordered a sleep study, and Larry complained about all the wires they attached to his head. However, it was found that my husband's breathing was indeed compromised by apnea. The solution turned out to be simple; a fantastic device called a CPAP machine. I call it a miracle worker. It keeps a steady flow of air so that the passages stay clear; no more apnea. Not only do I not have to worry about my husband not breathing, but now he doesn't snore.

My son is four, and he is pretty healthy. Except that he snores. The entire house rattles when he's sleeping. It's just horrible. I know what the problem is in this case. It's his adenoids. I know that we need to see an ENT, and I know that that ENT is going to recommend surgery to remove those offending adenoids. This is routine surgery; it may not even require a hospital stay.

I know all these things, and yet I haven't made the appointment. I'm freaked out about the idea of my boy having surgery. Emotionally, I have panic attacks thinking about my child going under the knife. I just cannot stand the thought of him lying there covered with tubes and wires again, not after all that time in the NICU.

I am disturbed by this disconnect between my intellect and my emotions. Parents have to balance their emotional and intellectual reactions to events that affect their children all the time, and most of the time I have that balance. But not here. My child depends on my ability to make rational decisions regarding his welfare, and I'm failing him with my own fears.

Am I the only parent out there who gets freaked out about this stuff? I don't know. Am I going to suck it up and deal with this? Yes. I don't think that I have a choice.