Surgery

Arriving at NY Prespeterian at 8am, I had two procedures to go through before I had my surgery

Dye injection
A blue dye is injected into the upper part of my breast that I am told to massage so that it enters the lymph nodes. This is to see which lymph nodes are fed my a direct link to the breast and those are the ones that are removed during surgery.

Poking  breast with a wire
I can't remember the name of this procedure but what is done is rather fascinating. Basically, they inject me with some sort of local anesthesia to numb the area and they commence poking me in the breast with a wire seeking out the marker that was placed in the tumor back in August. They hook the wire around the tiny marker by poking and prodding over and over again, running in and out of the room while they x-ray until it's perfectly hooked. They let me see the x-ray, I wish I had my iphone with me so I could have taken a pic. It was a happy moment when they completed the procedure.

This is done so that the surgeon has a guideline to find the tumor site and remove that tissue. I found this to be very clever and using foresight by many medical professions. I think that Dr that did my original biopsy back in August for placing that there.

The Surgery
I don't remember much about this except coming into the room and getting strapped onto a table like jesus on the cross. Many people where moving about the room, everyone was masked and friendly enough behind those masks. They asked a lot of questions about my breathing because I was still recovering from the pneumonia. I wasn't coughing up anything yellow or dark and my lungs were clear so they went ahead.

I woke up from a dragon demon dream in recovery, moaning from the pain. All the Game of Thrones reading I suspect. I hated to leave that for the reality of a recovery room. It seemed like I'd been out for a while. My throat hurt like a bitch. I was spitting up blood. It was from shoving a tube down my throat (tracheal intubation) while I was anesthetized. Oh yes, every thing hurt. Turn up the meds, pleazzzze.

I was in and out of consciousness. They gave me some Ginger Ale eventually and moved me to the recovery room The surgeon came into to see me along with nurses and I don't remember who all else. Eventually, I was moved into a recovery.

One thing I want to mention is that I happened to have some Slipper Elm Bark on hand. I knew there was a reason I was carrying it around in my bag. It was so helpful and they effect on my ravaged painful throat was almost instant. Sometimes it the small things. 

We spent a long time in recovery. It was a tight space with a lot of activity. From where I sat I could see the front desk and there was lots of activity with many many visitors coming in and out. I wanted out of there. I wanted chinese food. They gave me a horrid dry turkey sandwich which I nibbled on. When I dressed and stood to leave, a tidal wave of nausea hit me. I thought I was going to heave. It took all of my mental concentration to not do that. My body couldn't take it when I was still recovering from pneumonia and just post surgery. I begged it not do it. I made about 10 trips or more to the toilet with diarrhea. The nurses were trying to get in touch with the on call hospital doctor to get me a pill to help. It took a long long long time for that doctor to get back and me to get that pill. Thank you nurses for holding out, waiting with me and getting pill.

I was the last one to leave the recovery area waiting for the pill. It helped soooo much. We didn't leave until close to 9-10pm. I wanted chinese food again. I got it. It was the best Chinese food ever.


Review of pre-sugery:
The one thing I found unnerving about this surgery was how they moved me from place to place for all the procedures. I had to wear a hospital gown, pants, robe and these itchy little socks. They had me walking around in public halls, taking elevators and going from place to place without any solid foot wear. This was not reassuring, felt plain sketchy and unsafe. I walked into surgery with those some sock on, IN PUBLIC HALLS. That didn't feel okay to me. I commented while I was escorted around by various medical staff for the pre-surgery treatments and they apologized but this was the way it was. How is that reducing infection? Me, dashing about the halls in the clothing I'll be wearing in surgery?   I wish I had been permitted to wear my sneakers or advised to bring some type of footwear or loaned a pair of something like crocks.