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| This is a picture of some scarves I made for my children. Facebook is going to choose a pic for the preview and it's usually the first one I upload so I wanted something that wouldn't offend the uncurious. Though, I suppose my knitting skills are pretty offensive, but that's what happens when you only knit once every 17 years. |
Alright. I’m back.
Sans ovaries and fallopian tubes. Nothing else has changed.
Mom picked me up at
the butt crack of dawn on the day of surgery and we trudged in with a long line
of people checking in for procedures. Everything was very easy and went smoothly.
Nurses and doctors were friendly and professional and downright relieved at my
lack of allergies and diabetes. They made me feel like a unicorn. ‘This one has
no problems!’ Well, let me tell you about my stomachaches, Janice.
I am very pragmatic
about these situations if you haven’t already gotten that. I had an increased
chance of getting ovarian cancer so I removed the organ that gets that cancer.
This is logical to me and worth doing without question. Because of that logic,
I didn’t really allow myself to get nervous about the procedure. There are many
reasons for this. First, it wouldn’t help the situation. Second, it certainly
wouldn’t help my kids. Third, it just wasn’t a high-risk operation. I am
(apparently) the most boring patient in the world, I have been under anesthesia
before so they weren’t worried about that and it’s not like heart surgery or
brain surgery, right? Like, I hate to say there’s room for error because I’d
rather there be no errors, but if someone gets bumped while performing a
procedure I think the oophorectomy is the better choice. I still can’t spell
that word, by the way.
Unfortunately, not
even my stubborn-ass brain could entirely ignore the fact that I was having
surgery. I did start to get nervous just as they rolled me back to the
operating room, but I think they expect that because everything happened so
freaking fast from that point on. Out the room, wheely, wheely, wheely, OUCH
(see #2 below), wheely wheely, wheely, hop onto the table and BAM. I was out.
There were 2 things
I hated about preop:
1. The sterilizing
wipes you need to wipe your entire body down with at home. They were very, very
cold. This would have been a great activity for July or August. The ones they
gave me in the hospital were warmed up and that was much better.
2. The… um… knock
out juice? I don’t know. The crap they put into my IV kind of got held up in the
vein in my hand and then when it finally broke through it really hurt. Like,
really, really hurt. I legit yelled. Their response? ‘Sorry, sometimes that
happens.’ Okay. Fine. Occasionally I still feel a similar pain in the same
location, though not nearly as strong, and that is annoying. Not sure what/if
that’s a problem or not. I’m assuming not.
My mom said the
surgery went pretty quickly. I certainly thought it went super quick, but
that’s anesthesia for you. I think I woke up to the anesthesiologist asking me
what I like to do in the summer. I have no idea what I said. I wonder if these
people keep a list of crazy things people say. I for sure would.
There were
thankfully no bumps or complications and the doctor had no uncommon concerns
post-procedure, just normal post-op care. They wheeled me out of the hospital
about an hour later, but walking wasn’t a challenge, just a liability. I was
left with 3 incisions, as expected. The belly button one was the bleeder, the
other two were hardly noticeable. White sweatpants were a bad choice though and
the blood from my belly button bled through the bandage and saturated the top
of my pants. So, I treated the spot when I got home but then balled it up and
forgot about it and then the stain transferred to other parts of the pants.
Anyway, that blood somehow stained green after all was said and done those are
called my ‘blood pants’ now.
For those of you on
the edge of your seat with anticipation, no they did not let me see the things
removed from my body. She DID however, take a bunch of pictures for me INSIDE
MY BODY. Muahahahahahahahhaa. How cool is that?! I find this awesome and
incredible. Dan was not necessarily a fan. They are available at the bottom of
this post if you are interested. The very, very bottom. Just keep scrolling.
Post-surgery
medicine included alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen every 4 hours. I took them,
but only for about 2 days. It just wasn’t painful. They prescribed oxycodone as
well, but that has made me sick in the past so I didn’t take it (also, I didn’t
need it). I also had to take a stool softener, which is apparently common
aftercare of general anesthesia.
Nothing about the
surgery really hurt. My abdomen and insides felt really loose and wobbly when I
switched sides when lying down, but thankfully I have a friend who thought of
this and bought me a special tummy pillow. So yeah, the incisions were fine.
Occasionally my belly button bothered me, but so do papercuts. It just wasn’t a
big deal. The pain of the gas trapped in my body and building up at my collar
bones, however, was excruciating. Listen, I’ve been in pain before. I can deal
with it. Just breathe through it, right? Well, what the hell do you do when
breathing takes your breath away because it’s so freaking painful? Hm? What
then? YOU SUFFER. Ugh. I hated it. And they want you to walk around as part of
your rehab and I will tell you right now that that didn’t really happen because
the pain was so bad from the gas rising in my body and me trying to breathe.
Anyway, that lasted about 4 days. 6 days? I don’t know. Time was not really a
thing that was relevant to me.
Monday after surgery
a nurse called me and checked on me. That was appreciated. They give you a lot
of information after the surgery and I had a couple things I needed clarified.
Post-surgery
exhaustion is real and powerful. That was definitely what required the 10 days
off work. I also decided that if I didn’t need a job, I probably wouldn’t have
one. I’m really good at sitting and doing nothing.
Alright. Let’s talk
hormone replacement. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Surgery was on a Thursday. Doc
said to apply the first estrogen patch on Saturday. I did that. No hot flashes.
No problems. No side effects. No skin irritation. Nothing. It was alarmingly
mundane. She was so proud of me. I tell you what though, I thought this patch
was going to be huge. Like a 2” band-aid colored square. Nope. It’s a tiny
circle. I have 2 alarms set on my phone for this now. Wednesday morning and
Saturday night. I am not allowed to turn these alarms off until I change my
patch because I definitely know that I will forget to do it. So far, delays in
patch changing have had no side effects, but I’ve never been later than an hour
or two. One annoying thing is that there are only 10 in a box, so every 5 weeks
I need to refill. Oh well. Cancer would be much more annoying.
Lingering things- I
have 3 scars. They are tiny. The belly button BY FAR took the longest to heal.
The other two were healed by my post-op appt 13 days later, possibly sooner,
but the bandage was on so I couldn’t see them. That belly button? Um… 2 months?
I don’t know. Maybe only 7 weeks. Whatever it was, it was ridiculous and
annoying and a little gross at times.
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| The Q-Tip is for scale. The scar is the tiny red line under it. I have two of these, one near each hip. The estrogen patch is the clear circle on the left. I can put it anywhere on my lower abdomen, but it kind of just travels back and forth between my scars. They recommend changing it up to give the skin a break. |
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| On the left I'm stretching it out to show the whole scar. The right is how it looks normally. Yes, my belly button is still pierced. This is because piercings are fairly permanent. Yes, I thought it would close up when I was pregnant. Both times. But it didn't. Don't worry about it. It's not your belly button. (Can you tell I've been given some crap about this? Lol.) |
One thing I’ve noticed that I absolutely love and that I didn’t expect- I don’t feel sick in the morning anymore. I don’t know what my problem was but there was about a 75% chance I would wake up in the morning nauseated. It had been going on for years and now it’s gone. Since the surgery I have not had this happen even once. It is awesome.
Oh, right.
Pathology. Everything was tested and came back clear so that was a nice little cherry
on top of the successful surgery sundae. They also sent me home with a
breathing exercise measurement thingy to… prevent pneumonia? I’m not sure. And
from how they presented it, I could kind of tell that they were required to
give it to me but that it wasn’t really necessary. It looks like this:
One last thing
before I wrap this up. I want to thank everyone who reached out to me with
their experiences, support and encouragement after my last post. Just when you
think it’s something that not many people will be able to relate to or care
about, well, let’s just say it’s amazing how wrong a person can be. It’s true
that not many people carry the BRCA mutation. Only about 1 in 400, or .25%
(holy crap, I’m so special). But you guys, if you think you don’t know someone
who has been affected by ovarian cancer or this stupid mutation, whether in
themselves or someone they care about, you’re wrong. You just don’t know about
it. And that’s okay. Just keep in mind that it’s not something that happens to
some mythical and distant ‘someone else.’ If you can handle the burden of the
knowledge, I recommend getting tested. Not everyone with the mutation gets
cancer and not everyone who has cancer has the mutation, but to me, it made
sense to find out and try to be proactive.
If you have any questions
at all, let me know. I obviously don’t mind talking about it and if I can help you out
I’d love to do that.
Scroll to the bottom
if you are medically inclined or just curious and want to see progress photos
of the surgery. Let me me clear: these are photos taken of INSIDE MY BODY. That is your warning. If you don't want to see them. Don't scroll down. Easy.
Keep going.
Almost there…
Congratulations! You
made it!
