I haven't been as good about continuing my breast cancer story. I apologize. I seem to always stop sharing at around this point in my story. Like I have said in the past, this part of my story was pretty traumatic for me... the good news is that I survived, but it really was hard.
This story takes place in December of 2016. Follow along and check out my blog for the whole story (link in bio).
The last I shared was of myself after my double mastectomy and Diep Flap reconstruction story where I show myself in the ICU, my body was losing blood through a hematoma, I had a very elevated heart rate and needed several blood transfusions.
Long story short I did eventually make it out of the ICU after the doctors figured out why I was having that elevated heart rate. Since my body was losing blood through my hematoma and then filling my drains, my heart was pumping harder to circulate the blood throughout my body, thus the tachycardic heartbeat. I received several blood transfusions which then helped me to have enough blood.
The reason why they did not rush me back into surgery was because if I did, I could risk losing my fake boobs (foobs) LOL.. that's what they call them. The surgery took blood vessels from my abdomen and transferred them to my new foobs. Getting that blood flow to them was very important. If the veins failed then the foobs would fail. In order to check if they were getting that blood flow I had a slit in my newly constructed boobs and had to have a doppler inserted into them several times a day to detect a pulse. If they found the pulse then they were going to be just fine. See the pics for a visual reference of this concept.
Getting out of the ICU was a step in the right direction, but being in the hospital often alone was incredibly lonely. I did however have some visitors here and there that were such a blessing to my soul. My sister in law brought her baby to see me and that was also great because he was in a stroller which I was able to use as my "walker" to help me get some steps in to aid in my recovery.
I also will never forget my Late Aunt Mary sent me a beautiful Christmas bouquet with a nativity scene in it. To this day I still have the nativity scene. It means the world to me.
I did realize that it is really important to have someone with you at the hospital when you are really incapable of caring for yourself much. Being in the ICU the nurses helped with EVERYTHING. The service on the main floor was really less than ideal. They seemed understaffed and left us to fend for ourselves. I shared a room with an elderly woman which was also very interesting LOL. We both were helpless and needed a lot of help. I needed help to use the bathroom, to move from my chair to my bed and basically everything in between. Our room was so neglected that I had a moment where I found supernatural strength and charged myself down the hallway.. (more like hobbled) and gave the nurses a big talking to. How many times did I need to press the help button before someone was going to come. I honestly felt shocked. This is not to say I didn't have some really amazing nurses but it didn't really seem like things were at a standard of care that it should have been... that or my expectations were really high LOL. Thankfully my time didn't last too long there and soon enough I was on my way home.
I had a very long road of recovery ahead of me. I still had a big hematoma and tons of blood loss but the doctors didn't seem too overly concerned. I was given precise orders to take it easy and follow all of the discharge orders that were given.
One thing I learned very quickly was that this road was not going to be straight, flat, or direct. The journey takes a lot of grit and faith. The kind that grew me, humbled me and taught me very many lessons.
More to come!
