Checked in at 8am... went through all the typical pre-op "stuff" (health questionnaire, vitals, IV start, pregnancy test, etc). Headed into the operating room at around 10am. It was a quick procedure; I woke up in recovery at 11:30am. Unfortunately, I was in EXTREME pain. I gave it a 9 on the 1-10 scale. It was almost shocking. I cried & cried until they were able to manage it with morphine & who knows what else via my IV.
After the pain was finally tolerable and I was calm, I was moved to the next recovery room where family is allowed to visit. By then it was 1pm and I was dying to see Stevie (the hospital gets lonely real quick). He greeted me with flowers! That made me so happy.
Then I got to see my Mom and she helped me get dressed. At around 3pm, I was discharged and we were on our way home! We had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us, so the anesthesiologist gave me a motion sickness patch and it totally kept the nausea away! I was able to sleep for most of the ride home.
I'm currently recovering on the couch. I am managing my pain with oxycodone. Once it starts wearing off, the pain is almost unbearable, so I think I'll be on drugs all weekend.
Doc went through my previous lymph incision, so I don't have a NEW scar... just a larger one in the same spot under my right arm. It's close to 3 inches long. I should have my pathology report in approximately 5 business days. I won't know how many lymph nodes were actually removed until then. I have a lot of numbness around the incision, which may or may not be permanent.
I also have a JP drain. This is a device to collect excess fluid around the site. I'll have it in for a couple of weeks or until I am draining less than 30ml per day. Right now I'm at about 100ml/day. I have to empty it twice per day and record the amount, date/time, and color of the fluid. My apologies if you just lost your lunch.
If you look closely at this photo, you can see my underarm scar. The drain is attached just below that. This was right before I was discharged.
All in all, I'm doing great and look forward to a clean pathology report next week!!!
B
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