An Emotional Day

I’m so emotionally spent tonight that I’m not sure I have words for this post. At the very least, I’m gonna be all over the place with it.

We’re happy tonight, so very happy. We picked up supper and a bottle of wine. Jamie picked out flowers for me and put them in this milk can I got on one of my trips to Mexico Beach. We’re celebrating.

I had my first post-op visit today. I’ve been a bit nervous all week about it. Would the flap hold, would there be necrosis, would there be signs of a hematoma, how would I handle it if there was?

This is my plastic surgeon—Dr. Bahair Ghazi of Atlanta Plastic and Reconstruction Specialists. I love him. We love him. Last week my heart was broken. He repaired me, and he restored my heart.

I love this team—Maddy, Dr. Ghazi’s PA. She visited me each day in the hospital, and every single time she sees me, she asks about Kevin. (Apparently after my mastectomy, while under the influence of pain meds, I told her about Kevin and showed her photos and video.) The other young lady is Jodi, the nurse at Dr. Ghazi’s office. She is the one who cut off my bandages 2.5 weeks ago and had the first look at my damaged & dying skin. To her great credit as a nurse, she maintained great calm and reassured me during the whole visit. To her great credit as a caring individual, she teared up that day when I cried and asked if I’d done something to cause it.

Jodi was also the first person in the office to see the repair work today, and the look on her face gave away completely what a fabulous job Dr. Ghazi did repairing me. Perfect, she declared. Just perfect! Dr. Ghazi & Maddy came in, and everyone (Jamie & I included and especially) marveled at the work, front and back. It’s all healing beautifully, and the bandages can stay off and I can shower and I can moisturize and no, I can’t get on the bike set up in my living room, not even to pedal lightly. I can walk and I can eat—4000 calories a day because I need to fuel the big healing that is going on, especially in my back.

Before the post-op visit, I hoped and prayed I would get one or two drains out. That didn’t happen, and while it’s disappointing, I’m not really sad about it. Dr. Ghazi explained with a surgery of this nature, he doesn’t want to rush anything. I appreciate his being careful, and I can live with that.

We’ll just have to continue stripping drain tubes…

…and emptying bulbs.

For some reason, I am shy again to show off my chest, but this will give you an idea of the repair work. The skin inside the incision lines is from my back, and muscle from my back sits underneath it supplying it with blood and oxygen, It also adds fullness to the look.

And here is my back. The area on each side above the roll above the incision line is where he created a “tunnel” to take the skin and muscle to the front. And the reason I can’t get on my bike yet is because the is two very large areas under and around those incisions where he cut the muscle free from the skin to be able to flip the muscle so it could be moved. Bigger area than the incisions indicate. All that has to heal and can’t be subjected even to the minor back & forth movement light pedaling would cause.

We celebrated tonight the good news that last week’s surgery was successful. And then I cried. Tears of relief that it was a successful surgery. Tears of joy that finally we are on the road to recovery. Tears of sadness for the ugly (& what would have been excruciating had I any nerves left) death of my skin. Tears of grief because my breasts are gone. And tears of guilt just because I wondered if things could have been different had I done anything differently. Shouldn’t I have recognized that I wasn’t seeing bruising develop…it’s so obvious to me now that it wasn’t bruising.

So I had a cry, and it felt good to let go of all I’d been holding back in the name of staying focused & positive. We’re so happy to be here where we are tonight.

And now I’m focused and positive again. And emotionally spent.