Listen to Your Gut. It Really Is Telling You Something….

I am a firm believer in listening to your gut.  There’s a reason we were given gut instincts. You may not like what your gut is telling you, but generally it is right.

The morning of surgery

My surgery was scheduled for 7:30 am with an arrival time of 5:30 am. My family and I had slept at my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, the night before my surgery.  There were several reasons we made this decision to stay there, but primarily it was because the hospital was 15 minutes from their house and my dad, who has been by my side through some of the most difficult times in my life (a blog post for another time), was able to accompany me, along with my husband and son (who refused to leave my side) to the hospital.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about getting ready to leave the house that morning, other than praying to the Blessed Mother to protect me during the surgery and for the Holy Spirit to fill me with a sense of calm and peace, the yellow shower curtain liner, how the hot water felt beating on my chest (a feeling I wanted to cherish for fear I’d never feel it again) and the smell of the Dial anti-bacterial soap they wanted me to wash with before going into surgery.

When we arrived at the hospital, I remember thinking it looked like an Embassy Suites Hotel with soft lighting, a pretty atrium, glass elevator and nice seating areas where families could wait for their loved ones during surgery. I thought to myself, what a welcoming interior design, surely created to calm patients and their families.  Too bad I can’t appreciate it because my heart is beating out of my chest and I want to vomit.

As I walked up to the registration desk to check in, I noticed the electronic surgery board hanging above it.  I knew the slip of paper that was handed to me during registration with my identification number on it would be on that board shortly. This number would be my family’s life line to me.  This six digit number was my family’s only way of knowing when my surgery began, when it ended and when I was being taken into recovery.  This number would let them know everything, while I knew nothing.

Prepping for surgery

As I walked into the room where they prepared me for surgery, there was a lavender surgical gown, gray hospital socks and a ‘shower cap’ that I needed to change into, all sitting on the gurney that I was going to be wheeled down to surgery on. As silly as it sounds, I remember being irritated at the thought of not being allowed to wear underwear into the Operating Room (little did I know that I was going to be catheterized and have a breathing tube put in – information they don’t disclose until the last possible minute).

There is a lot that goes on before heading into surgery: vital signs being taken, questions being asked, papers being signed, IV getting put in, and surgeons coming in to speak with you. My plastic surgeon came in and took out some tracing tool and matter of factly drew purple pictures all over my chest.  These pictures would be his guides, his road map during surgery. To me, these pictures signified a loss of something I had carried with me for half a century.

The fabulous 5

As my surgery time approached, they let my support system into the room to give me a kiss and wish me luck.  My support system that morning was made up of all men, some of the most important men in my life, including my husband, my father, my son and my two brothers. The fabulous five. So many times in my life they have needed to be strong for me, lift me up, encourage me.

But today was different.

Today I could see fear and sadness in each of their eyes as I was being rolled out of the room toward the Operating Room.  I knew the tables were turned and I needed to be strong for them, so as I was being rolled down the hallway, I did the only thing I could think of in the moment to make them laugh and lighten the mood, I yelled out my battle cry one last time, with my fist in the air like Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club, ‘Ta-ta to the tatas, hello to the hooters’!

Thank you, Jesus!

Thank you, Jesus! That was the very first thought I had as I woke in the Recovery Room.  Thank you, Jesus for letting me survive that surgery. Thank you all the saints in Heaven, thank you!

My next thought was, what time is it?  It was 11:30 am.  My surgery took about three and a half hours and I was in recovery.  The doctors told my family everything looked good and they didn’t anticipate anything out of the ordinary, but they would call me with the pathology results in about a week.

A sense of relief washed over me. I had done it. I had given myself a gift. I could now relax. I could finally exhale after months of fear and worry of the unknown. I could finally start to recover and let go of the constant fear of breast cancer.

Thank you, CrossFit!

People kept asking me how I felt. Did I need pain medication? Does it hurt? The answer was no, I don’t need heavy duty pain medication.  I can do this with Advil and Tylenol.  No, my chest does not hurt. The feeling to me was very familiar because I’d CrossFit for several years.  It felt like I had done 1,000 push-ups. The tightness and muscle soreness in my chest didn’t bother me, because thanks to my coaches I had felt this feeling before. CrossFit, unbeknownst to me, had been preparing me for this moment. It made me smile.  What didn’t feel so great were the four drains that were coming out of my body.  These drains, although terrible, are essential in the healing process.

The drains…

Something got lost in translation in all the meetings I had with my surgeons.  I could swear up and down that they said I would only have two drains.  My husband said he heard them say the exact same thing. So when I learned after surgery that I had four drains (two on each side), I nearly freaked out. How on earth was I going to manage? I’ll tell you how I managed, I have an AMAZING partner.  He stepped right up and helped me every single solitary step of the way. I thanked the Lord that I made the right choice in a life partner.  Not many men would have been as loving, kind, understanding and helpful, especially when it came to the drains.

Three things that should be known about drains.  Showering, washing your hair and drying yourself is an exhausting and cumbersome task. It is a two person job. Sleeping with drains is not necessarily the most comfortable thing to do. Emptying them can be well…gross…

Because the drains are coming out of your body and hang, you need to hold them up somehow in the shower, so I was given a lanyard to hook them to.  One lanyard for four drains just isn’t enough so I used two lanyards. On most days, I had to psych myself up to shower. There were days that I would just sob because there were so many steps to go through before and after the shower. From emptying the drains, to hooking them to the lanyards, to getting into the shower, to gingerly washing the surgical areas and the rest of my body, to trying to lift my arms to wash my hair, to the tugging of the drains from their entry into my body because I may have turned wrong. It was exhausting.

One day a drain somehow became unclipped from the lanyard after the shower and dropped like a brick down my side. I think I literally saw stars in that moment as a primal scream escaped my throat and uncontrollable tears streamed down my face. I think I screamed in agony for a good two minutes. That was a pain I never wanted to feel again. My poor husband looked like he was going to faint. I’m surprised he didn’t!

Recovering and the phone call

Recovery, aside from the annoyance of the drains and the feeling of the expanders (basically heavy duty implants that get filled with saline by the surgeon each week until you get to the size you ultimately want to be) in my chest, was going ok.  I slept a lot.  So it wasn’t unusual that I was asleep when my breast surgeon called to give me my pathology results.

I will never forget the feeling I had when I listened to his voicemail. He sounded very serious and said to call him back, he had my results. I immediately was transported back to all the times I waited for MRI and mammography results. I felt sick to my stomach, started to shake, felt a panic attack come on and began to cry. Thoughts raced through my head…

No way, it can’t be possible.

I’m reading too much into the sound of his voice.

I know I had a gut feeling that something could be wrong, but I took care of it.

There’s no way I could possibly have had cancer.

My MRI was just clear 3 months ago.

Calm down. Call him back. It will be ok.

I called him back and got his voicemail.  I left a message.  I called my mom hysterically crying. She told me to calm down and that I was probably worried about nothing.

A half hour later I spoke with my doctor.  The pathology report showed that I had had cancer in the lower right quadrant of my right breast.

CANCER.

I had DCIS (ductual carcinoma in situ), Stage 0, 4mm. They got clean margins. But I needed to see an oncologist.  We would discuss all of this at my follow up appointment in a week.

My gut was right. There was something wrong. I had made the right choice. And now the journey begins…