i am a butterfly…

How about an update?

This has been a really diffcult recovery, which is why I haven’t really posted since the surgery. Today, I’m feeling well enough to sit at my desk long enough to post, though, so it’s time for an update.

The surgery was on December 17 and it went really well. It only took about 2 hours, which is fantastic. (First surgery, 6 years ago, was 7 hours and the second, 4 years ago, was 4 or 5 hours, so 2 is awesome.) The really terrific news is that the cysts really were cysts, not a return of the tumors! Dr. Holcomb talked to Scott while I was in recovery and said the biopsies came back clean, he saved the ovary, and we’re clear to do more IVF if we choose. I couldn’t have asked for a better result.

I had a hard time with the IV pain meds the next day and couldn’t keep any of the liquid diet down, but that eased up as soon as they took me off the IV and I started the percocet. Everything seemed to be going great until Thursday night, when I developed a fever. It wasn’t too high, so they gave me some Tylenol and took a urine sample to check for a UTI. That fever went away very quickly. That was a miserable night, though, because I was still on the IV pain meds and feeling so nauseous on top of being hot from the fever.

Unfortunately, that day they took the bandage off and a few hours later I looked at the incision and noticed that it was red and the skin around it was hot, which meant the incision was infected. They started me on IV antibiotics to control the infection, but the red area around the incision kept getting bigger. So on Saturday, my doctor started opening the incision to look for pus, which he unfortunately found. He had to open half the incision to clean out the infection and irrigate the wound. That sucked. Hard. That was followed with several more rounds of IV antibiotics, but I had another fever overnight that night. So on Sunday, my doctor ended up opening up the entire incision and found more infection. At this point, my nice, neat surgical incision had become a 10cm long, 5cm wide, 5cm deep wound. This wound has to heal from the inside, so they put in a wet-to-dry dressing to keep it open and prevent it from closing over and healing with an abscess.

Finally, on Monday, they set me up with a visiting nurse service for home and released me from the hospital. All told, I spent 6 days in the hospital, when I was expecting to spend 3. My doctor also ordered a wound vac, which came a few days later and has been on for 10 or 11 days, though we’ve had some problems with the nurses not setting it up right. (A topic for another post.)

As a result of the huge wound, this recovery has been the worst of the 3 surgeries. Ironic, because the surgery itself was the simplest. I’m still taking percocet for the pain, which is considerable. At this point after the previous surgeries, I was off pain meds. So healing is slow and my mobility is limited and I spend a lot of time reclined, but I’m getting a little better every day. The wound is down to 9.5cm long, 4cm wide, and 2.8cm deep, as of this morning, so it’s healing well. It looks absolutely HORRIBLE to me, but I’m assured by the nurses that it looks excellent. Beefy red is good, they tell me.

Scott’s staying home one more week to take care of me, which is really good, because I still need him. He goes back to work next Monday.

So that’s where I am. How’s your world?

Ain’t no luck, I learned to duck

I am alive and relatively well, and wanted to take a moment to post here to say so. I’m still pretty weak and also quite addled from the percocet, but getting better every day. More another day, but I wanted to wish you all a happy, healthy, and safe new year.

Catch you on the flip side.

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(Semi-)Daily Gratitude #14

With the way the economy is looking right now, I’m so very grateful that Scott has a job and that I have work. Work for me has been down a bit, because it’s down for my clients, but I have a couple of bread and butter clients who help get me through.

And as for Scott’s job, it appears to be stable, which is a huge relief. The firm has been making cuts here and there, but not many to staffing. They’re even still giving bonuses this year, which is great, because we expected to hear that bonuses were cancelled. The cuts have taken the form of things like no holiday parties, which saved them several million.

So I’m grateful that, even though things are tight, we’re doing alright, which is more than many others can say.

A Dr. K Memory

Since going back to Dr. H and firing Dr. K, I remembered that I actually met Dr. K before. And I didn’t like him then, either.

After my first surgery, all I could eat was watermelon for a while. My stomach couldn’t handle anything else, but the watermelon was good because at least it kept me hydrated. After the second surgery, however, I was ravenously hungry and eating fried chicken the day after. Even though Dr. H had to repair a perforated bowel the day before. I felt really good and really hungry and I wanted fried chicken, so Scott said screw the hospital food and went and got me fried chicken.

When Dr. H came in and saw me with chicken, he said, “Good. You’re eating!” And that was that. But when he was off duty and Dr. K was making rounds for him, he was shocked. He called Dr. H to tattle on me, that I was eating fried chicken after a bowel perf, and Dr. H just told him, “She knows herself. If she feels like she can eat it, I’m going to let her eat it.”

I didn’t remember this until recently, after I fired Dr. K, but I wonder if it was in my subconscious when I had that consultation with him and was yet another thing that set up that visit to be adversarial right from the beginning.

Less than a week to go.

Holiday Shopping

I can’t believe it’s already December 5. It’s kind of hard to get into the holiday spirit yet, even though I have to finish all my shopping in the next few days. Since I’ll be in the hospital until a few days before Krismas, I need to get everything ordered, delivered, wrapped, and shipped out by the 15th.

Surprisingly, I’m almost done. I need to pick up something else for Scott, and some stocking stuffers, and I still need to figure out what to give my mother’s husband, but other than that, I’m done. The best part is, I remembered that I had a whole bunch of Amex points saved up and decided to use them, so I haven’t even had to spend much money. Originally, I was saving them for a KitchenAid mixer, but I’d rather use them on holiday shopping right now. I was able to get my mother-in-law and her husband a $100 gift card for Ruths Cris for exactly zero dollars. That is so worth having to wait longer for the mixer.

I wish that I could say what I’m giving Scott and my mom and my brother, but they all read here and that would ruin the surprise. I’m so bad at keeping secrets about gifts, though. I just want to tell everyone right away. Suffice to say that Alex’s gift is so awesomely cool and I know he’s going to love it. Scott, too. And I have hopes that my mother will like hers, too.

Now we just need to get the house cleaned and decorated. Then maybe it will feel like Solstice season.

Thanksgiving

Austermann Step Socks

A very basic pair of socks meant to help me practive some new-to-me techniques. They’re just plain old stockinette with a 3×1 ribbing on the leg, done toe-up on two circulars, with a short row heel.

On the sock on the left, you can see the ladders I was getting using the two circs method. On the sock on the right, no ladders! I got some great help from a few Ravelers and was able to get rid of those ladders completely.

The short row heel is still giving me some problems. You see that raised line on the left sock? I can’t figure out how to pick up my wraps to prevent that. Looks like I’ll be practicing this technique more before I get it right.

The yarn is Austermann Step, and it’s a great yarn. It supposedly has aloe vera and jojoba oil in the fibers, which is supposed to stay through 40 washes. I can’t honestly say I can tell that it has those things in it, but I’ll take their word on it. I love how the yarn knit up, and I’m pretty proud of myself for matching the color runs so well on each sock!

(Semi-)Daily Gratitude #13

Today I’m really grateful for my mother. When I called her after my doctor appointment last week and told her that the surgery date was set, she asked if I wanted her to come up for the surgery. I asked, “Do you want to come?” And she replied, “It’s up to you, but if you want your mommy there, you’ll have your mommy there.”

And yeah, I really do want my mommy there. Even at nearly 39 years old, when I’m sick or hurt, I still want my mother. So she’s coming up on the 16th and will stay with us that night, then stay in a hotel near the hospital for a couple of days.

I’m really glad she’s coming, and so is Scott, who remembers how her presence during my first surgery helped keep him sane while they sat for 7 hours and waited for news. Hopefully they won’t be sitting with no news for that long this time, but if they are, it’s nice to know they’ll have each other to help keep calm during that time.

And even nicer to know that she’ll be there when I wake up in recovery.

Like Night & Day

That title describes my change in attitude after seeing my old oncologist last Thursday.

To refresh your memory, the other oncologist - Dr. K - said the cancer is back, and he just wanted to remove my remaining ovary and be done with it all. He said the cysts were too big to remove laprascopically. He basically poo-pooed my concerns about surgical menopause at such an early age and my concerns about taking HRT for so long. He was impossible to get information out of and I hated him.

He sent me into a month-long bout of sometimes serious depression, in which I was having a severe existential crisis and spent a lot of time wondering why there was even any point in continuing to live. I felt old. And I felt like a failure as a woman. And I felt scared and alone, because  my doctor didn’t seem to really care about me. I was hiding it fairly well most of the time, but the fact is, I was only getting out of bed in the morning by sheer force of will. I could easily have just spent the past month in bed.

Fast forward to my old oncologist, my original oncologist - Dr. H - whom I saw this past Thursday. He completely disagreed with Dr. K’s diagnosis. He was surprised, at first, to hear that I really didn’t like Dr. K and said that it was Dr. K who originally made him want to go into gyn oncology. I didn’t say it to Dr. H, but that surprised me, because I can’t see Dr. K inspiring anyone.

 When Scott and I walked into Dr. H’s office, he remembered us, even though it’s been 4 years since we last saw him. When we talked about the IVF as part of my medical history with my crappy ovaries, he asked about their success or lackthereof. When I said they were unsuccessful, he said he was sorry. And he was sincere.

r. H doesn’t think the cancer is back. His opinion is that we’re dealing with simple cysts. Non-functioning cysts, but cysts nonetheless. He has some small concerns about the fourth, smallest one, because of that debris, but he concurs with the original sonogram tech that it’s likely just old blood. He also thinks that, unless the biopsy in the OR surprises him and it shows cancer, there’s no reason to take out the ovary. He asked where we were with the IVF with regard to continuing, because he wanted to take that into consideration when he perfomed the surgery.

He cares about preserving my fertility. (Ha ha. Okay, stop laughing at the idea that I have any fertility at all. Seriously. Stop.)

And not just my fertility. He takes my concerns about surgical menopause seriously. We discussed at length the studies about prolonged HRT and the possible increased risk of breast cancer. His opinion is that the risk is lessened for a woman my age, because having estrogen in my body at 39 is natural, whereas the natural state for women of menopausal age is for there for be no esrogen. He believes it’s that unnaturally lengthened exposure to estrogen that raises the risk of breast cancer. So if I do end up on HRT, it would be gradually tapered off as I get older and closer to a natural age for menopause.

He has more concerns about progesterone than estrogen, so if it turns out that I have to lose the ovary, he’s recommending the removal of the uterus, as well. The reason for this is that you need to take progesterone as part of your HRT when there’s a uterus in place, so he would prefer to remove the uterus which would allow me to only take estrogen. But here he’s leaving the decision up to me, because of the possibility that we may try to use donor eggs. With no uterus, that would obviously be impossible.

So the surgery is 12/17 and I have an MRI on 11/26. The MRI will give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with, since MRI’s are very good at seeing cancer. Depending on the MRI results, currently only a cystectomy is planned. The cysts will be biopsied while I’m in the OR, and I’ve already given him permission to remove the ovary if any cancer cells show in the biopsy. I’m still considering my options about the uterus if it comes to that. If the biopsies do show cancer cells, he’ll also check some lymph nodes and possibly remove the rest of my omentum if he left any there the first time.

He was going to do it laprascopically, but Scott reminded him about the bowel perforation last time - which he would have discovered for himself later that evening when he reviewed my surgical records, which he took with him from Beth Israel - and he doesn’t want to risk another bowel perf or vascular damage. But there’s something else Dr. K was wrong about, since he said it couldn’t be done laprascopically. (Which, in retrospect, what did he know, since he doesn’t know how to do robotic surgery.) The good news is that he thinks he’ll only need about a 4-inch incision this time instead of the 7-inch incision he used the last two times.

To say that I’m more comfortable with Dr. H would be an absurd understatment. The relief that I’m feeling right now is palpable. Scott tells me that everything about my demeanor changed the second Dr. H started talking. It’s still possible I could wake up ovaryless, but now I know, with 100% certainty, that if that happens, it will be because Dr. H had to do it to protect my health, not because it was just easier for him that way.

If I could clone anyone in the world, it would be Dr. H. I would clone him and have each of his clones go into a different medical specialty so that everyone could have a doctor like this. He’s the absolute best.

And, one last thing, I think I’m going to like NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital better than Beth Israel. Beth Israel is a fine hospital, but NYP feels nicer.