eclipsedbyme

i’m leaving the hospital today and heading back home to maine to recover. it’s certainly been a rough whirlwind of a few days. we came down to boston and stayed in the hotel next to the hospital wednesday. bright and early thursday morning we went into surgical admitting and they whisked me away. went into the pre-surgery unit, got an IV and some medications, some sexy hospital pants and footies. laid on the bed and talked to about a zillion different people about the surgery, anesthesia and all kinds of stuff. then the anesthesia nurse said “i’m going to give you something now that will relax you, like a nice big glass of wine.” and it was. i loved it. i don’t remember much after that. but from what i understand, the surgery took about 5 hours and went very well. i woke up groggy but i remember going from recovery to my permanent room. it took me a few days to get back on my feet and to get control over the pain but i think i’ve got it worked out now. now i just have to get used to this phantom feeling i have in my chest. this numb squishy transitional feeling. it’s weird. and i get to go home with 4 drains coming out of the incision areas. yay! :( so i have things hanging from my body too. bizarre and creepy. but that cancer is gone. it’s not in me anymore, not growing and making me sick. and there no chance of it coming back the same way. and that makes me happy. the next steps are healing from surgery and expanding the skin to the size of my new breasts. then radiation for 6 weeks. the healing from that. then i can finally finish reconstruction after that. so when i look ahead, i’ve still gotta be strong, but the hardest stuff is past me now. that also makes me happy.

i really haven’t cried much through this whole situation. i still doesn’t seem real to me sometime. i often wonder if i will have a breakdown after it is all said and done. who knows. who cares. i just wanna stick around a little longer so i’m gonna fight.