May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours!
~ Robert Frost

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. This is my story of how I faced my risk of breast cancer, the decisions I made, the support I received and my week by week recovery from surgery. I chose to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with immediate DIEP reconstruction at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (March 2010). For more information on my 'Medical Team' please see tab above. I also have a wonderful circle of friends who have supported me throughout. They have provided us with lots of delicious meals and desserts. Many of those recipes are included above under "Feed the Flap" recipes. "Feed the Flap" is a term I coined when trying to increase my abdominal (fat) flap to ensure that I was a good candidate for the DIEP procedure. This was not something recommended by any medical professional, it was just something that made sense to me. I think it worked!! Feel free to join me on this journey and feel free to post comments.

Select the tabs on the left side marked Week 1, Week 2, Week 3..... to go immediately to the surgical/recovery part of this blog.


Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Day 3

Well today is supposed to be the worst day of all according my PCP's nurse. The pain will hit hard, although my plan is to stay well ahead of it. Now where's that pump? I will be forced to do more than sleep. DH might just see that evil "I don't want to get out of bed" look. It won't be the first time, but it just isn't pretty. My abdominal incision goes literally from hip to hip. This is supposed to be the more painful of the incisions initially. The best thing for me to do today is to breathe into the spirometer and get out of bed. The more I move the more quickly I will recover and the sooner I can come home. The gameplan is for me to stay in hospital for five nights, so 2 down, 3 to go.

Today is also the day that I will second guess my decision to reduce my breast cancer risk. I can hear me now. Again, not a pretty sight. Hopefully DH will go out and get me something gooey and chocolate today. Hmmmm, I can't have caffeine (in the chocolate), so not sure what he will bring back to make me happy again!!! The hospital's beef pot pies make me very happy if chocolate isn't allowed. I have tried to make one like their's, but just can't seem to get it right. Maybe I should have packed some starbursts or tootsie rolls (I don't think the chocolate counts in those). So, hopefully today will pass quickly and I will be beyond the pain.

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails