The path of life is the present.
I wake up with a mission: to jump-start the long, critical process of detoxing my body, regain my sense of balance, stop hallucinating, empty my bladder fully, restore functionality to my digestive system, get rid of the chemical taste in my mouth so I can actually enjoy food again, and get acquainted with my new girl.
First task: Get rid of the patch! After breakfast, I take off the transdermal scopolamine patch that’s been sitting behind my right ear since pre-op, when the anesthesia doc, in between hooking me up to the IV and running through my anesthesia history, carefully stuck it on, promising that it would minimize any residual feelings of nausea I might have post-op from the anesthesia. As much as I know it was a necessary piece of the surgery and my initial recovery, especially given how pitifully sensitive my stomach is to any kind of motion sickness (especially the drug-induced, midway ride, or whale watch kinds), it feels good to peel the patch off and throw it away. Those patches pack a lot of power in a very small space. Shaped like a small, circular band aid that you might use to cover a shaving nick on your leg, the patch feels like a bug crawling up my neck, or a deer tick burrowing in for some dinner, and time and time again, I’d scratch it away, only to realize too late, of course, that it was just the damn patch, and I’d have to rush off to wash my hands.
Apparently, whatever makes it so effective can also rub off on your fingers, and if your fingers come into contact with your eyes, it can do strange things, dilating your pupils and blurring your vision. In addition, there’s a host of other most excellent side effects, including drowsiness, disorientation, dry mouth, blurred vision, dilated pupils, confusion, hallucinations, difficulty urinating, and rash, that are associated with use of the scopolamine patch. Funny, but I’ve had all those symptoms since surgery on Tuesday, and as glad as I am to have a reason for them, it’s also a little frightening to think of how strong the medication must be in order to wreak such havoc on your system. Add in all the other meds—the touradol, the anti-nausea drugs, the anesthesia gas, the vicodin, the antibiotic, etc—and you’ve got yourself a pretty potent little brew. Hence, my mission.
When I finally do rid myself of the patch, it takes me a short while to regain my land legs, and initially, I find myself pitching about as if I were on a boat rollicking on the high seas. Jim wore a patch during the week we were traveling around the Galápagos Islands two summers ago; I think it worked brilliantly for him. If he was hallucinating, I wasn’t aware of it (actually, he thought he saw blue-footed boobies, but they were actually just pigeons, haha). The rest of us were downing Dramamine at dinner time, when the table would pitch back and forth in synch with the rough seas outside, and we’d have to steady the dishes from sliding across to the other side. By the time Mauricio, our guide, worked his way through his presentation as to what our schedule would be the next day, we’d be lost in a drowsy Dramamine haze, eyes drooping, head dropping and then snapping into alternating bursts of slumber and wakefulness. Whaddya say? More blue-footed boobies tomorrow?
Task two: Unwrap the bandages for the Great Reveal. I had taken a few sneaky peeks yesterday, trying to see what was making me itch so badly (maybe the patch, maybe the adhesive tape), but couldn’t see much, just the edge of the incision on the left side. I am eager to meet my new girl, to see what she looks like after all this time, and to see if I indeed have a matching pair. There was some relief in knowing that Dr. Pitts deemed the lift to my right breast unnecessary; my right girl would be intact, my left finally in tune with the right, party- porn girl Pamela Anderson evicted, and a new tenant—quiet, responsible, low-key—moved in. But hovering around me is a bit of anxiety, an annoying fly that I can’t quite swat away. What will she look like? Will she be bruised? Discolored? Will there be any other surprises—places where the adhesive tape has ripped off my skin, Dr. Pitts’ sharpie marks, any discharge leaking from the incision? Ewww...
I stand before the wide mirror in the upstairs bathroom. The wrapping is thick and tight. I start with the outermost layer, slowly unraveling it to its end. I stop to roll it up, taking my time, knowing that once it’s done, I’ll have to unwrap the rest. Thick surgical pads sit under the next layer of gauze. They are free of blood, and I think: this is a good sign. I don’t want to have to revisit the bruising and bleeding of my post-mastectomy girl, who truly needed all those pads for comfort and protection, and for crying her drain out.
First task: Get rid of the patch! After breakfast, I take off the transdermal scopolamine patch that’s been sitting behind my right ear since pre-op, when the anesthesia doc, in between hooking me up to the IV and running through my anesthesia history, carefully stuck it on, promising that it would minimize any residual feelings of nausea I might have post-op from the anesthesia. As much as I know it was a necessary piece of the surgery and my initial recovery, especially given how pitifully sensitive my stomach is to any kind of motion sickness (especially the drug-induced, midway ride, or whale watch kinds), it feels good to peel the patch off and throw it away. Those patches pack a lot of power in a very small space. Shaped like a small, circular band aid that you might use to cover a shaving nick on your leg, the patch feels like a bug crawling up my neck, or a deer tick burrowing in for some dinner, and time and time again, I’d scratch it away, only to realize too late, of course, that it was just the damn patch, and I’d have to rush off to wash my hands.
Apparently, whatever makes it so effective can also rub off on your fingers, and if your fingers come into contact with your eyes, it can do strange things, dilating your pupils and blurring your vision. In addition, there’s a host of other most excellent side effects, including drowsiness, disorientation, dry mouth, blurred vision, dilated pupils, confusion, hallucinations, difficulty urinating, and rash, that are associated with use of the scopolamine patch. Funny, but I’ve had all those symptoms since surgery on Tuesday, and as glad as I am to have a reason for them, it’s also a little frightening to think of how strong the medication must be in order to wreak such havoc on your system. Add in all the other meds—the touradol, the anti-nausea drugs, the anesthesia gas, the vicodin, the antibiotic, etc—and you’ve got yourself a pretty potent little brew. Hence, my mission.
When I finally do rid myself of the patch, it takes me a short while to regain my land legs, and initially, I find myself pitching about as if I were on a boat rollicking on the high seas. Jim wore a patch during the week we were traveling around the Galápagos Islands two summers ago; I think it worked brilliantly for him. If he was hallucinating, I wasn’t aware of it (actually, he thought he saw blue-footed boobies, but they were actually just pigeons, haha). The rest of us were downing Dramamine at dinner time, when the table would pitch back and forth in synch with the rough seas outside, and we’d have to steady the dishes from sliding across to the other side. By the time Mauricio, our guide, worked his way through his presentation as to what our schedule would be the next day, we’d be lost in a drowsy Dramamine haze, eyes drooping, head dropping and then snapping into alternating bursts of slumber and wakefulness. Whaddya say? More blue-footed boobies tomorrow?
Task two: Unwrap the bandages for the Great Reveal. I had taken a few sneaky peeks yesterday, trying to see what was making me itch so badly (maybe the patch, maybe the adhesive tape), but couldn’t see much, just the edge of the incision on the left side. I am eager to meet my new girl, to see what she looks like after all this time, and to see if I indeed have a matching pair. There was some relief in knowing that Dr. Pitts deemed the lift to my right breast unnecessary; my right girl would be intact, my left finally in tune with the right, party- porn girl Pamela Anderson evicted, and a new tenant—quiet, responsible, low-key—moved in. But hovering around me is a bit of anxiety, an annoying fly that I can’t quite swat away. What will she look like? Will she be bruised? Discolored? Will there be any other surprises—places where the adhesive tape has ripped off my skin, Dr. Pitts’ sharpie marks, any discharge leaking from the incision? Ewww...
I stand before the wide mirror in the upstairs bathroom. The wrapping is thick and tight. I start with the outermost layer, slowly unraveling it to its end. I stop to roll it up, taking my time, knowing that once it’s done, I’ll have to unwrap the rest. Thick surgical pads sit under the next layer of gauze. They are free of blood, and I think: this is a good sign. I don’t want to have to revisit the bruising and bleeding of my post-mastectomy girl, who truly needed all those pads for comfort and protection, and for crying her drain out.
I unwrap the rest and there she is: my new left girl, stunningly awesome, a perfect match for my right girl, in size and shape and droop and wiggle. Bravo, Dr. Pitts! Gone is the stiff rigidity of the expander, and in its place, lies a softer, more natural looking and feeling breast. Of course, they’ve been wrapped up so tightly for so long that they look slightly squashed, and as I check them out, I am at once struck with the hilarity of how small they really are, and I laugh out loud. It’s good to have my girls back. However small they are, they’re mine—and, they’re cancer-free. Bonus.
Task three: Take my first shower, hurrah! There is no bruising, no discoloration, just some dried blood along the incision. There is no pain, just some soreness that comes and goes to remind me to take it easy for a while. I don’t rush but I don’t linger, either. I wash my hair, easily reaching the top regions of scalp and pate, and I am happy for the lack of tenderness in my chest that made it so difficult to do much of anything after my last surgery. As I soap up around my chest, I give my new girl a little push, and she jiggles. I give my old girl a little push, and she, too, jiggles. Perfect.
Out of the shower, I’m wondering how long it will take for my girls to spring back to life after being strapped down for so long. I’m not allowed to wear a bra for another four weeks, so, I’ll have to make do with layering with tank tops, and somehow disguising the fact that I still only have one nipple. There are paste-on nipples you can buy for just such an occasion—when you’ve only got one, and you don’t want people staring at your chest, trying to make sense of what they’re seeing. But I don’t think I’ll bother with those; I figure, most women have subtle differences in their breasts and nipples that go unnoticed each and every day. And at a certain age, when you really start to feel like a Used Bagge, you just don’t give a hoot what people might think. For years, I never wore a bra, and even back then, I didn’t really care if my nipples were showing through or not. But when people know that you’ve had breast cancer and reconstruction surgery, their eyes will invariably travel to your right side and then your left, wondering, just what does a reconstructed breast look like?
My left girl is still a girl in progress, after all. In another two months, I’ll be able to get my nipple, and I won’t have to worry about whether anyone is wondering why my left girl looks so smooth and nipple-less, while my right girl is clearly saying hello!. And two months after that, I’ll get tattooed—color for the nipple and an instant areola, and maybe, if I can convince the tattoo artist, a lovely little lizard, too. Unlike the past two surgeries, the nipple construction will take place in Dr. Pitt’s office, not at NWH, under local anesthesia, not general. Here’s a horrible image: long ago, many male plastic surgeons used to take tissue from a woman’s labia (yes, labia, and if you don’t know where or what that is, you should refer to your old anatomy book and make a date to acquaint yourself with your vagina, or, as my family likes to call it, your pookie) to construct her nipple. Can you imagine? Doesn’t that make you want to grab your crotch and never let go? Ouch!! In recent years, docs have used skin grafting techniques, taking skin from the inner thigh to create a new nipple. Dr. Pitts has said that skin from the inner thigh just doesn’t feel or look enough like the real thing, and that she prefers using skin from the breast itself to form the nipple. Makes good sense to me. Just as long as it’s not my labia!
Task four: Pick more strawberries. Get out in the sunshine. Breathe in some fresh air. Expel gunk from lungs. My mother, Luke, Dominick and I take our time filling our boxes with berries. The picking is exceptionally good this year, and it’s easy to overflow a quart container without having to move an inch down the row. It’s the perfect activity: calming, meditative, delicious, leisurely, and fun. We run into friends and get caught up while the kids start to stain their lips and finger tips and shirts with berry juice. A reporter from the local paper shows up to ask us questions: how long have we been picking at Upinngil? (ever since we can remember) What is our favorite variety? (the non-rotten kind) What do we do with the ones we pick? (throw them at annoying reporters) Yadda, yadda. A photographer shows up to snap away while we’re gleaning the rows. I almost tell him to take a picture of my new girl. First photo-op! Or not. I forget myself. No one cares about your girl, I tell myself, and frankly, we’re all getting sick and tired of hearing about it all the time, so shuddup already! It’s about the strawberries, after all. We’ve picked twenty one pounds. We grab some shortcake biscuits from the Honey House on the way out, and plan on a veritable strawberry feast at dinner time.
My cousin Susan arrives for an unexpected visit in the early afternoon. It’s so great to see her. As we sit and talk and laugh, I am acutely aware of the how much healing power resides in simply being with people you love and who make you laugh, pulling you outside yourself for just a few moments, to air out your worries, and help you remember that you will feel better tomorrow, and even better the day after.
Task five: Move that blocked chi along! My mother drops me off at my acupuncturist’s office in the afternoon. Dan’s a quiet, unassuming, kind man who makes me feel like a chatterbox, prattling on and on about my new girl, about my bloated belly, the hallucinations, my sluggish system. I take to the quiet of the table and welcome the rush of the needles as they find and release stagnant pools of energy. I count ten needles in all. Ah, I have some work to do. I close my eyes and the faces appear around me. They are unrecognizable, looming over me, morphing into other faces. Are they left over from the masked faces that surrounded me in the OR? My spirit guides come to tell me something? I breathe deeply, and focus on the street sounds spilling into the room from outside. Within minutes, I am falling into a deeper level of consciousness. One by one, the sounds peel away, baring the quiet and stillness of my soul. The faces are gone. It’s just me now, feeling the tug and flow of energy up and down the currents that crackle and rage with life force. Time slips away…
Dan comes back into the room to remove the needles, recheck my pulses; I am ushered back into body and room, where the sounds reappear, and I am once again here. My mother waits for me in the lobby. I can feel things starting to move again. We head home to round up dinner, and get the strawberries ready for the shortcake. It’s really the only thing to do on this day. The promise of Friday's Summer Solstice suffuses the night sky with an excess of light, the orange sun taking its time to drop over the horizon. The sky is so beautiful with clouds and colors and light that I hope someone, somewhere, is painting it.
Task six: Sleep. Heal. Dream. Ask the faces what they want. Then ask them to please leave me alone. Sleep through the dog's barking, the boys coming into the house after spending another night in the tent, the roar of trucks pulling up over the hill, the birdsongs filling the skies. Wake up and feel better, knowing that everything is going to be okay. Believe it. Trust it. Surrender to it. Embrace it. Leave the fear behind.
Task three: Take my first shower, hurrah! There is no bruising, no discoloration, just some dried blood along the incision. There is no pain, just some soreness that comes and goes to remind me to take it easy for a while. I don’t rush but I don’t linger, either. I wash my hair, easily reaching the top regions of scalp and pate, and I am happy for the lack of tenderness in my chest that made it so difficult to do much of anything after my last surgery. As I soap up around my chest, I give my new girl a little push, and she jiggles. I give my old girl a little push, and she, too, jiggles. Perfect.
Out of the shower, I’m wondering how long it will take for my girls to spring back to life after being strapped down for so long. I’m not allowed to wear a bra for another four weeks, so, I’ll have to make do with layering with tank tops, and somehow disguising the fact that I still only have one nipple. There are paste-on nipples you can buy for just such an occasion—when you’ve only got one, and you don’t want people staring at your chest, trying to make sense of what they’re seeing. But I don’t think I’ll bother with those; I figure, most women have subtle differences in their breasts and nipples that go unnoticed each and every day. And at a certain age, when you really start to feel like a Used Bagge, you just don’t give a hoot what people might think. For years, I never wore a bra, and even back then, I didn’t really care if my nipples were showing through or not. But when people know that you’ve had breast cancer and reconstruction surgery, their eyes will invariably travel to your right side and then your left, wondering, just what does a reconstructed breast look like?
My left girl is still a girl in progress, after all. In another two months, I’ll be able to get my nipple, and I won’t have to worry about whether anyone is wondering why my left girl looks so smooth and nipple-less, while my right girl is clearly saying hello!. And two months after that, I’ll get tattooed—color for the nipple and an instant areola, and maybe, if I can convince the tattoo artist, a lovely little lizard, too. Unlike the past two surgeries, the nipple construction will take place in Dr. Pitt’s office, not at NWH, under local anesthesia, not general. Here’s a horrible image: long ago, many male plastic surgeons used to take tissue from a woman’s labia (yes, labia, and if you don’t know where or what that is, you should refer to your old anatomy book and make a date to acquaint yourself with your vagina, or, as my family likes to call it, your pookie) to construct her nipple. Can you imagine? Doesn’t that make you want to grab your crotch and never let go? Ouch!! In recent years, docs have used skin grafting techniques, taking skin from the inner thigh to create a new nipple. Dr. Pitts has said that skin from the inner thigh just doesn’t feel or look enough like the real thing, and that she prefers using skin from the breast itself to form the nipple. Makes good sense to me. Just as long as it’s not my labia!
Task four: Pick more strawberries. Get out in the sunshine. Breathe in some fresh air. Expel gunk from lungs. My mother, Luke, Dominick and I take our time filling our boxes with berries. The picking is exceptionally good this year, and it’s easy to overflow a quart container without having to move an inch down the row. It’s the perfect activity: calming, meditative, delicious, leisurely, and fun. We run into friends and get caught up while the kids start to stain their lips and finger tips and shirts with berry juice. A reporter from the local paper shows up to ask us questions: how long have we been picking at Upinngil? (ever since we can remember) What is our favorite variety? (the non-rotten kind) What do we do with the ones we pick? (throw them at annoying reporters) Yadda, yadda. A photographer shows up to snap away while we’re gleaning the rows. I almost tell him to take a picture of my new girl. First photo-op! Or not. I forget myself. No one cares about your girl, I tell myself, and frankly, we’re all getting sick and tired of hearing about it all the time, so shuddup already! It’s about the strawberries, after all. We’ve picked twenty one pounds. We grab some shortcake biscuits from the Honey House on the way out, and plan on a veritable strawberry feast at dinner time.
My cousin Susan arrives for an unexpected visit in the early afternoon. It’s so great to see her. As we sit and talk and laugh, I am acutely aware of the how much healing power resides in simply being with people you love and who make you laugh, pulling you outside yourself for just a few moments, to air out your worries, and help you remember that you will feel better tomorrow, and even better the day after.
Task five: Move that blocked chi along! My mother drops me off at my acupuncturist’s office in the afternoon. Dan’s a quiet, unassuming, kind man who makes me feel like a chatterbox, prattling on and on about my new girl, about my bloated belly, the hallucinations, my sluggish system. I take to the quiet of the table and welcome the rush of the needles as they find and release stagnant pools of energy. I count ten needles in all. Ah, I have some work to do. I close my eyes and the faces appear around me. They are unrecognizable, looming over me, morphing into other faces. Are they left over from the masked faces that surrounded me in the OR? My spirit guides come to tell me something? I breathe deeply, and focus on the street sounds spilling into the room from outside. Within minutes, I am falling into a deeper level of consciousness. One by one, the sounds peel away, baring the quiet and stillness of my soul. The faces are gone. It’s just me now, feeling the tug and flow of energy up and down the currents that crackle and rage with life force. Time slips away…
Dan comes back into the room to remove the needles, recheck my pulses; I am ushered back into body and room, where the sounds reappear, and I am once again here. My mother waits for me in the lobby. I can feel things starting to move again. We head home to round up dinner, and get the strawberries ready for the shortcake. It’s really the only thing to do on this day. The promise of Friday's Summer Solstice suffuses the night sky with an excess of light, the orange sun taking its time to drop over the horizon. The sky is so beautiful with clouds and colors and light that I hope someone, somewhere, is painting it.
Task six: Sleep. Heal. Dream. Ask the faces what they want. Then ask them to please leave me alone. Sleep through the dog's barking, the boys coming into the house after spending another night in the tent, the roar of trucks pulling up over the hill, the birdsongs filling the skies. Wake up and feel better, knowing that everything is going to be okay. Believe it. Trust it. Surrender to it. Embrace it. Leave the fear behind.
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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