Too Much Information

Well, you all thought that the boob talk was over, didn't you? It's not, because my boobs, though smaller and more manageable than they were before, just refuse to cooperate. Remember how a couple of posts ago I said that one of them was leaking a mix of blood and icky stuff? I finally had to go back to the doctor again yesterday, because they just would not stop. I have ruined five or six shirts, and I am tired of weaing a maxi pad in my bra. ( By the way, if you ever do have some problems with boob leakage, may I say that a pad works really well, and also nursing pads are helpful.) So I went to the doctor. He felt me up and told me that there is a build up of fluid in one of my ducts, and also a fluid pocket on the side of the boob. Then, just to torture me a little, he squeezed and squeezed my (hurting, painful, swollen, did I say PAINFUL) poor boob and told me that I would have to do the same at home. My legs were literally kicking at the chair as he crushed my boob between his fingers. It hurt so bad. So bad, in fact, that A* had to take me out to my favorite place for lunch afterwards. I mean, it was the only thing that could have made me feel better at that point. So now I have to sit at home and let my boobs drain indefinitely. I am SUCH a party animal. Do you want to come over and watch me drain? I bet that is your idea of a great Friday night! I'll probably even watch TLC's What Not to Wear... sure you can stand the excitement?

Okay, I know I'm hopelessly behind the times, but A* and I just got a membership to Sam's Club last night. Oh my god, I heart Sam's Club. I can't believe I have been missing out on all the retail goodness up until yesterday! How could I have survived? We managed to buy flowers, two pillows, and a gigantic package of chicken breasts... all at the same place!! The possibilities are endless. I'm such a dork, but I can't wait to go back again. Our visit was cut short because we had to be somewhere, and I feel like I really missed important stuff. Who knows the deals that I could be getting? And the sizes of the products boggle my mind. I was wandering around the aisles in awe, when I spotted Tide in a huge container that was on sale. A* really likes laundry, so I figured he would be excited. I shrieked for him to come and look at the ginormous Tide, and went to pick it up. That fucker must have weighed a million pounds. How does one do laundry with something that is too big to even pick up? I guess you could put it up on a shelf and just pour the detergent in a cup, but how would you even lift the Tide onto a shelf? I literally could not pick this thing up. A* gently steered me away from the giant Tide, telling me that I would most certainly drop the mammoth container on myself, and then I wouldn't even be able to use it. "But," I told him as we left the aisle, "we would have enough detergent to get lots of blood stains out!"

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! Have fun!! If you see a girl with a grossly unproportioned chest that is leaking all over her, come and say hi. I might offer to take you to Sam's Club.

Okay, someone up there is listening to me. Remember yesterday, when I wrote about how A* and I are broke and wah and wahhhh? So I went to get the mail this morning, carrying my homemade lunch because we DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY FOR ME TO BUY LUNCH, and there, like a gift sent from Heaven, was my disability check from when I was out for my surgery. It couldn't have come at a better time, truly. I have knocked on wood so much today that my knuckles are swollen and bloody, but guess who is going out to dinner tonight? Yay!

Oh, and by the way? When I got home from work, there was a carton of ice cream in the freezer for me. I love A*.

Little Bits

So, haven't been around in a while. That is because BIG, I tell ya, BIG things have been happening. So of course it makes sense that I wouldn't blog about them, because I just like to bore people about nothing instead of telling stuff that actually might be of interest. Yeah. But let me start with the not so big things, then I'll work my way up.

First~ following my surgery, we have been a little tight on money. By a little tight, I mean that when I got home yesterday A* had dumped out our two respective piggy banks and was counting out change. We came up with $13.50 in pennies. Tomorrow I will get a paycheck, but only for one week as opposed to the two week one I usually get. So we have been working hard to keep ourselves above water, and of course this causes some tension. Could it be because we can't afford to go anywhere, so we are forced to sit in our apartment and stare at each other? But there is light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and not mind too much that there hasn't been a carton of ice cream in the freezer for a whole week. A WEEK, people. But I'm not minding, see?

Second~ Recovery was going well, until yesterday when the front of my shirt suddenly bloomed blood. I called the doctor, who told me to come in right away. Of course, this caused A* to freak out, because he is like that, and he insisted that I pick him up at work first. We went to the doctor, who basically told us that we were being dumb. No, that's not really what he said. What he really said is that there is a build up of old fluid that is just now coming to the surface. What he meant, though, was God when are these people going to stop bothering me. So we went home, where I took off my sweatshirt and noticed another huge stain of blood. I felt too dumb to call the doctor back, though, so I put some Bacetracin on it and covered my chest with gauze, and so far so good. The funniest part of all of this is that A* took it upon himself to be my own personal doctor and needed to examine my incisions. First he laid on my lap and used a lighter to try and see. When I flinched because that flame was just a little too close to my skin, he got the brilliant idea to use a flashlight. So I sat on the couch trying to watch Dr. Phil and A* put on his miner helmet and went in with his flashlight. He examined every square inch of me, and pronounced me okay. Thank you Dr. A*.

Third~ Another reason we are broke? Is because we bought an ENGAGEMENT RING a couple weekends ago. It was such a good deal, we couldn't pass it up. I have been wearing it around the house with my pajama's on, but A* has some big surprise proposal plan that he refuses to give up, so I have to wait until the actual proposal to wear it. However, I couldn't keep my big mouth shut and everyone pretty much knows anyway. Which forced A* to talk to my dad on Sunday, because my mom can't keep a secret and she threatened to tell him before we did. How cute is that, though? A* took my dad outside and told him that he would like to have his permission to have my hand in marriage. As this was taking place, my mom, brother, aunt and I were trying to spy and hear what they were saying, but my brother leaned on the windowsill too hard and it crashed down with a huge BANG. Sleuths, we are not. Fortunately, my dad was very happy to give his permission. Not that I wouldn't have married A* without it, it was just a nice formal thing to do. My dad loves old fashioned stuff like that. So I have been prancing around "almost engaged" and telling everyone... including, now, the entire internet. Hi! I'm almost engaged! I have waited 3 long years for this ring, so it is a huge big deal. And gorgeous. And a diamond. Woo!

So that is what has been going on, in a nut shell. I am already having some issues with my mother about my (fictional, so far) wedding, but that will have to wait for another post. See, I told you, big things!

Post Op 9 Days

I know that you have all been waiting for the big surgery post... I know it, even though no one but me ever reads this! Well, I haven't really been able to get out of the house for the last week, so today was the first chance that I had to tell you all about it. So without further adu, here it is....

A* and I were shot from sleep at 7:30 am the morning of the surgery by the phone ringing. It was the hospital, saying that my doctor had a cancellation and would there be any way for me to come in earlier? I was actually very happy with this news, because that gave me less time to sit and think about what was going to happen. I called my mom and asked her to come over earlier and in a half hour she was there to pick us up. A* held my hand the whole way to the hospital, and whenever I would think "Ah, I'm doing it!" and squeeze his hand painfully, he would just squeeze back.

We arrived at the Same Day Surgery Center, where a cheerful security guard ussured us in. He asked who was the patient, ,and for a stupid minute I didn't realize that hey, that's me! He told my mom that in order to get in the building, she had to have a "heat sensor" read her palm and to wave it over this picture thing. My mom waved and waved her hands, until she noticed the man beside himself with glee. Turns out she is just gullible, and there was no need to be doing this. It lightened the mood considerably, though. I signed in at the front desk, and my family was given a pager that would go off when I was finished. My mom, grandma, A* and I sat in the waiting room for about five seconds before I had to go to the bathroom... again. My stomach is not the best when it comes to stressful situations. They finally came and took me back, assuring everyone that they could come back and see me before the surgery would take place. I went to a room and a nurse came and asked me all sorts of questions, and then hooked me up to an IV. I told her that I had taken some Tums earlier that morning, and she put some Pepsid in my IV to try and make my stomach calm down. Ha! Then I met the anesthiologist, who in turn made me take a pregnancy test "because of my age." Since I have been in menopause for the last six months, I wasn't shocked to learn that I was not pregnant.

They let my family come back, and we all made stupid small talk around my hospital bed. I was so nervous, I don't even remember what was said or what was really going on. By this point, maybe they had given me something in the IV to relax me, too, I don't know. That could be why things are fuzzy. My doctor came down and reassured my family once again, and gently told them that they needed to leave. My mom was hurriedly issuing last minute instructions about "her baby"~ "You know, the anesthia makes her really sick. The last time she had surgery..." and so on and so on. I heard her calling out a medication that I was allergic to (and was already stated on the bright orange hospital bracelet I was wearing) as the doors shut. A* smoothed my hair back from my forehead and told me that he knew I would do great, that he was proud of me, and that he loved me. I held onto his hand for a long moment, contimplating chickening out. But he smiled at me, and I was able to let him go.

The doctor asked me to stand up so that he could make some markings on my breasts. I was wearing the standard hospital gown, with nothing what so ever on underneath it. He drew some purple lines on my chest, keeping up a running commentary to both me and the plastic surgery resident that was with him. He asked me to put my hands on my hips to get under my arms, and to my horror the entire gown fell down to the ground and I was standing stark naked minus hospital slippers in front of two strange men. To their credit, though, neither said anything and my doctor simply reached down and pulled the gown back up. I was embarassed, even though in minutes both of these men would be holding my breast tissue in their hands. Go figure.

After the markings, things started moving fast. A nurse came to wheel my bed up to the surgery area. On the elevator, some people got in and I wanted to yell at them, "I'm getting my boobs chopped off!!" but I restrained myself. It didn't even seem real. Once we got into the room, I had to get onto another bed and stretch both of my arms out to either side. Everyone in the operating room had their masks on, so I couldn't really tell what anyone looked like, but a nurse with very nice blue eyes covered me with a warm blanket and told me they would take good care of me. A man bent over me and told me that they were going to start adding medication to my IV, and soon I wouldn't feel anything. The nice nurse told me to imagine myself in a place that was "far from here." The room began to spin lazily, and I was out.

I woke up in the recovery room gagging. A nurse hurried over and gave me a basin, but seeing as I hadn't eaten anything for the past twelve hours there was nothing to come out. My throat was on fire because of the breathing tube, and I hurt all over. I tried to see the new boobs, but I couldn't get a good look at them, plus the room was still a little fuzzy. I retched on and off and drifted in and out of sleep. On one of the times I woke up, the nurse was putting something in the IV to help with the nausea. I asked her if my family could come and see me, and she winked and said she would see what she could do. The next time I opened my eyes, my mom was holding my hand. She said that A* was calling a few people and would be back in a minute. I smiled, and heaved again. I know that she was thinking, "I TOLD them that she got sick." A* came back then, and just seeing him made me feel much calmer. He whispered to me again how proud he was, and I gave him a drug enduced grin. Then I threw up again.

They had to give me three more shots of medication to try and combat the nausea. By this point, I was SO over the whole thing and wanted nothing more than to go home to my bed. They made me get up to go pee (I threw up again) and then they said I was okay to go home. I sat shakily in a wheelchair while my mom pulled the car around. I don't really remember the ride home, but when I had to walk up the steps to my apartment it was agony. Every movement felt like it was ripping my breasts off my body. I threw up again, twice. I was finally, blissfully in my own bed. I shut my eyes and didn't wake up for the next thirteen hours.

This is a pretty long post, so I'll give you the rest next time. Meanwhile, I am trying to get used to being six lbs less a woman!