It Just Keeps Getting Better...

I did not think that I would be seeing a bag like this so soon...

But unfortunately, I had to last night.  Let me start at the beginning...

On Tuesday, my plastic surgeon was able to take my last drain out.  It had been almost 7 weeks since my mastectomy.  7 WEEKS!?!  It is very unusual for a drain to stay in that long.  Most people have their drains out after 7-10 days.  I guess my body misunderstood the difference between days and weeks.

I was beyond excited to have that sucker out of me.  I loathed it.  I was finally a free woman, ready to start the next chapter of this story-Radiation.  

Sadly, that is not how this chapter is going to go...

On Wednesday night, I noticed that my right breast (the one that the drain was in) was swollen and a little tender.  I had an appointment with the Radiology Oncologist on Thursday morning so she checked it out and we decided that beginning the process of radiation would probably not be the best thing.  So I called my plastic surgeon and she had me go to her office so she could check it out.  I couldn't meet with her until about 5 pm yesterday (Thursday).  By this time, my right side was twice as big as my left side.  She was hoping to be able to just drain it in the office, but when she saw it she basically said, I will meet you at the hospital.  

I was full of infected yuckiness that could only be taken care of in the operating room.  Mark and I headed up to the hospital and arrived there about 6 pm.  The tricky thing about going in for surgery when you aren't expecting it is that question, "When was the last time you ate something?"  While we were at her office I could not think of the last thing I had eaten.  My mind was like a blank slate trying to process the fact that I was about to head into surgery again.  I remembered the salad I had eaten for lunch and thought that was the last thing I had eaten.  On the way to the hospital, however, I remembered that I had eaten a handful of pretzels at 4 pm.  This created a problem because they like to wait at least 6 hours after you have eaten something before surgery, unless it is an emergency.  I wasn't really bad enough to be classified as an emergency surgery.  So instead of having surgery at 7 pm, we had to wait until 10 pm.  Stupid pretzels.

The surgery went well.  She was able to clean out all of the infection, but unfortunately she had to remove my tissue expander as well.  It had bacteria growing on it and could not be left in.  She also could not replace it with a new one in case there was still some bacteria left in my breast because it would just latch on to the new expander and start the process all over again.

It feels like a surreal nightmare.  I look down and see a normal left side and a nonexistent right side and it freaks me out a bit.  I will have to wait to start radiation until I get a new tissue expander put in.  I don't know when that will happen and of course, that means another surgery is in the near future.  I will also probably have to go through the whole expansion process again.  

*sigh*

Check please, I am done...