When I started writing this blog I knew that I wanted to portray my story in a positive way, I have made it through the worst year of my life and I've coped so much better than I ever imagined. I know I've moaned a bit about chemo in my previous posts but even that was so much easier than I expected, I felt poorly for about a week after each dose but I still had two weeks of feeling pretty normal and I could get out and about, see my friends, go out for dinner, all the normal things. My mastectomy operation posed a new set of challenges and I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with them. I knew right from the start of treatment that I would need to have a mastectomy, as I was having my chemotherapy before surgery I had about 5 months to get my head around it. I felt sad about it but that was about all I felt, I had a lot of time to think about my emotions and how I might feel after the operation, but even then I still didn't feel anything strongly. Some people feel angry at their body for letting them down, some people can't touch or look at their boob, but I never felt like this, I just felt a bit sorry for it, as if the cells in it had just got a bit confused. I didn't feel an overwhelming urge to have the cancer cut out of me, it all felt too abstract to get my head around, that this lump was trying to kill me.
During chemo my Oncologist was so happy with the way my lump was responding (getting smaller) he sent me back to my surgeon for a consultation to see if she wanted to operate sooner than planned. She was happy to let me finish all my chemo first before operating, but it gave me a chance to get a date agreed for my operation: 22nd April 2014. I was to have a mastectomy of my right breast, all my lymph nodes removed in my right armpit and an expander implant inserted into my chest, on the right side where the breast used to be. The expander implant was my surgeon's suggestion, this meant that I'd have an empty implant inserted and then once my scar had healed the implant would be slowly filled up with saline to help my skin expand and give me something that looked like a normal breast. The expander implant can only be kept in as a temporary measure so the ultimate aim is the stretch your skin sufficiently to enable the expander to be replaced with a silicone implant at some stage if that's the recon option I choose.
I was fine with all of this, I was happy to have all the surgery I needed to give me the best chance of recovery and the biggest lesson I have learnt through all my treatment is to trust my instincts, how I felt before my operation was exactly how I felt after, nothing had changed, bits of my body had been removed and it looked different but it didn't make me feel any different.
The night before my operation I was scared, I was going to be under general anaesthetic for about four hours, I've never had an operation before, this frightened me. I was scared of not waking up, or waking up and feeling so poorly or in pain that I wished I was still out of it. My Mum (as usual) was a brilliant support, she has had several major surgeries in recent years and she reassured me that I would be OK. I think I just needed to get it off my chest that even though I appeared to be brave, I was actually pretty scared. We were at the hospital the next day at 7am, I hadn't even been awake before 7am in weeks, let alone up and dressed! That was probably the worst thing about Tuesday 22nd April, having to get up at the crack of dawn because the rest of the day could not have gone any better. The first lady on the list for surgery hadn't turned up that day as she was poorly, I was second on the list so it was all systems go to get me ready for theatre.
First they gave me those those horrible surgical stockings to wear, then a Doctor came round to draw some lines on my chest to make sure the surgeon chopped the right boob off. This is where my Mum got upset, she found it hard to watch me getting marked up for surgery, I am young and healthy(ish) and it broke her heart to think that my body was never going to be the same again. So they whisked me off at about 8.30am, my Mum was crying when I went but I was hard as nails, not a tear in sight, this took some determination but I'm very proud to say that I didn't cry. I thought it would be silly to cry about having life saving surgery, I'd got it out of my system the night before. It would have made my Mum feel worse too, knowing I was on my own getting prepped for the op, sobbing my eyes out. The anaesthetist had 2 big syringes to inject into me ( I was very used to big syringes by now and I watch every needle that goes into my body with enthusiastic curiosity) he told me the first one was a painkiller that might make me feel a bit drunk...he was right. Then I asked what the next one was, 'anaesthetic' he replied, that was the last thing I remember for four hours...
Until I woke up in recovery. The memories of everything post op are very vivid and very funny... I was obviously high as a kite on painkillers. I could hear everything going on around me perfectly but I was still so groggy I couldn't open my eyes or speak. I was wheeled back onto the ward and my parents came to the side of my bed, I could hear them, my Mum was holding my hand, I still couldn't speak or open my eyes so I just smiled, as wide as I could to let them know I was OK. In my drugged up state I knew that this was my way of communicating silently to them not to worry, but I just looked like an idiot, it didn't help that they had put my headscarf back on after theatre and it was a bit wonky. My Mum said I looked very funny! I didn't feel sick, I wasn't in any pain at all and I just remember thinking how lovely and comfortable the bed was. I never asked what it was they gave me but it felt lovely. As soon as I was awake enough I wanted to see what my boob looked like, I looked down the front of my hospital gown and was amazed, I was very unprepared for how normal my chest looked, it was as if they had taken all the stuffing out of my boob, cut the nipple off and sewn it up again. All the skin was still there, I didn't have a big crater-like wound on my chest. I got my Mum to have a peep down the gown to see, my Dad couldn't be persuaded to look...
My surgeon came to see me, she said the operation had gone very well and that I could go home that evening if I wanted to. I had to fulfil some criteria before I was allowed to contemplate going home, I had to get up out of bed to walk to the toilet and eat something a bit more substantial than a biscuit. I never believed that it would be this easy, major surgery in the morning and skipping out of the hospital in the evening, except that I had to work out how to manage at home with a drain in. I didn't notice the drain until later on in the afternoon, the tube was poking out of a hole under my armpit, I had never even seen a drain before and now I had one, it was a bit horrible to look at, draining off the extra blood and fluid my body still making for the space where my boob used to be. I had to take it home from the hospital in a special fabric bag that was purpose-made for carrying drains, I even had a choice, checks or stripes? (I went for stripes). The drain stayed in for four days until I went back to the hospital to have it removed. Very slightly annoying trying to get dressed, wash, go to the toilet with a tube poking out your armpit. For once I was so grateful to not have any hair to wash.
I've just realised that I've written this whole post about my mastectomy without a single mention of pain, that's because I didn't suffer any pain, just a weird dull ache. After I came back from theatre the nurses came round to check my pain levels, I didn't have any pain, I kept asking if this was right, was it about to start? Not only had I just had a mastectomy, I also had all of the lymph nodes in my armpit removed, all 13 of them, so there must have been a bit of rooting around in there too but nothing really hurt.
I couldn't wait for the dressings to come off so I could see what my scar looked like, I'm not a squeamish type of person, I have a few scars already so my new one was going to be in good company. I had read up on line about different women's reactions to having surgery for breast cancer, I couldn't relate to it at all, I couldn't imagine feeling 'mutilated' and not being able to look in the mirror at the changes to my body. It never bothered me remotely, I was fascinated with the whole process, it saved my life and I still looked like I had a real boob. I was honestly amazed at what my surgeon had done for me, I was happy to show anyone who expressed a passing interest.
I went back to the surgeon for my results two weeks later, they sent everything they removed to the lab for testing after the operation and they found that the tumour had shrunk from 5cm to 2cm, although there were still active cancer cells in it, of the 13 lymph nodes they removed only one showed evidence of disease and there was no lympho-vascular invasion, meaning that cancer cells had not penetrated the blood vessels in my breast. Good news all round!! Phew, the 6 rounds of chemo were worth it in the end.
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