so.so.tired

do you think my mom will come back to take care of me again?

good and bad

well. it's GOOD that i decided to take another day off from work to continue to recover.

but it's BAD that physically i felt i HAD to. :(

boo hoo.

both vaidya's cousin and dr. simonds told me the majority of people are totally fine after 7-10 days. no problem. i was thinking because i'm relatively, because i'm active and strong that i would make a miraculous recovery. 7 days. NO problem.

boo hoo.

here i am day 12. still on the couch in pain.

i had thought i'd be able to go back to work. i thought it might be a little difficult. but i thought i could do it. but today? yuck. no way. it hurts to IMAGINE riding the bus? sitting in meetings for hours? riding another bus to the other office? sitting with clients and fully paying attention to them instead of my own stinging pain? oy. i'm ready to be done with this.

ouch.

hiccups really hurt after reconstruction surgery.

i've had them off and on for 2 days.

i think i can i think i can

well, yesterday was the biggest day yet.

as a valentines day sweet treat for my mom and me, my dad gave us pedicures. so yesterday my mom and i went to the nail salon in downtown los gatos to get manicures and pedicures. it was so nice and relaxing. so nice to be pampered. and now i feel extra cute...with my "fishnet stockings red" toes.

it was a bit of a wake-up call, though. turns out i can walk about as fast as a turtle. i felt a little silly among the hustle and bustle of downtown los gatos...and here i am creeping along...barely crossing the street in enough time.

we were out for a total of 2 1/2 hours and i came home and could not keep my eyes open. i wasn't really in too much pain. but i was exhausted.

but then we were both cheered up by a visit from cassie green. cassie green who grew up on cambridge street with us. cassie green who i haven't seen in probably 20 years. cassie green who now has a beautiful 10-month old ava.

it was so nice to see her. and to find out that we're in the same profession.
it's nice to have those connections that, no matter how long you go without seeing someone, you still feel connected just cause you grew up on the same street.


and so far today?...i haven't felt any serious pain...10 days a charm?

one step forward

*breath*

okay. i actually slept through the night last night. no serious pain. and my doctor finally called me back this morning and told me that all of this is normal. he suggested a change in the way i take my meds. and it just felt so soothing to talk to him. he's such a nice guy.

so.

now that i have a new meds plan, i'm feeling much better. more relaxed. and in way less pain. i had been up to about a 7 1/2 on the pain scale. right now it feels about a 2.

and it's a beautiful day. so, day nine, things are looking up.

boring

god, it's so boring to write about pain and to be in pain. it was much more fun to write about all the good stuff. wah.

well, yesterday i spoke to an on-call surgery doc about my pain. he was dismissive. which felt really nice.
he finally listened to me and agreed to prescribe me something more powerful. so my nice mom drove to kaiser to pick up my new prescription. i took my first dose at 3:30pm. and from about 8:30-10:30pm, i was in tons of pain again. after taking my second dose at 9:30pm, i was in serious pain from 3:30-5:30am. uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.

so now i'm waiting for my favorite dr. simonds to call me back. to tell me what to do. cause i'm SO.SICK. of feeling like this.

ug

i've spent the last 20 hours trying to both be able to describe my pain and will it away.
if i just don't move, don't breathe, will it go away? no.
if i take the vicodin a little before hour 4 will it go away? no.
i can't do any of my normal things to make my body feel better. no stretching. no working out. no curling up in a ball on the couch. it suckssss.

i've been in so much pain for the last 24 hours and i can't figure out why. i was finally able to take my first shower on sunday afternoon. and i'm worried that might have done me in...the rule is that i wear the tightest of tight ace bandages for 4-6 weeks. i can only take it off when i shower. and, at least to me right now, the new moral of the story is: no showers for 4-6 weeks.

ever since that shower, ever since i took off the ace bandage, i've felt this searing pain. it's not the incision site. it's the empty implant. i feel stinging all around it. and every once in a while, i feel this searing pain like a combination of hydrogen peroxide on a cut and a burning metal dowel stuck into my new breast mound. it hurts to breathe. and because it hurts to breathe, i'm all light-headed cause i'm trying not to breathe. it hurts to move. and i'm really upset about it. :(

the good news, though, is that i slept for 14 hours last night, interrupted only every 4 hours to take my vicodin.

will somebody just come deal with this for me? :)

18 hours later...

i feel like i have so much to share. where to start?

well.

i ran around like a lunatic on monday and tuesday. trying to get everything done before surgery and before taking a week and a half from work. there was so much to do. which, in a way, was good because i didn't have any time to start worrying. so tuesday night my mom flew in from colorado. we went to get thai food in the rain. and then completely passed out. although, it took me a while to pass out, actually. the anxiety did start to kick in right before bed.

then my mom and i drove to kaiser in south san francisco. got there at 930. everything was on schedule for 1130 surgery. and then...dear lord...i lay waiting in the pre-op room for FIVE HOURS. no one gave us any updates. no one really paid attention to us. i just lay there with an IV, alternately whining and complaining to my mom about how bored and starving i was - i wasn't allowed to eat anything aftermidnight the night before...so it was going on 15 hours without food or water. whining. whining. whining.

the nice part of it was that i fell in love with three anesthesiologists and, again, my surgeon. the anesthesiologist who lives two doors down from me came to introduce me to another anesthesiologist who lives across the street from us. they were so nice and entertaining. and suggested we should've just done this in our neighborhood. the surgeon commented that it might be better to have lunch in our neighborhood instead.

then about 4 hours later i met dr. kong, my own anesthesiologist who i promptly fell in love with. he was so nice and so sweet. and he totally tricked me. he was all talking to me about what kind of music i'd like to listen to in the surgery room. offered anything but rap or country. suggested they were most recently playing talking heads. i told him i thought that was great. and after that i don't remember a single thing. he totally tricked me. i had no idea he was putting me to sleep.

then i woke up to dr. simonds, my surgeon, asking me if i had read a textbook before the surgery because it was a completely textbook surgery. good line, dr. simonds.

it took me a while to wake up fully. a lot of bells and beeps telling the nurses that i wasn't breathing deep enough. vicodin for the pain. cranberry juice for the sore throat. and finally i felt well enough, alert enough to start the process of getting out of the hospital.

long story, huh?

anyway, we got home around 7pm. a full, full day. i was groggy. not in too much pain. i have a "pain booster" attached to my stomach that's regularly putting something like novocaine into the surgery site. and i'm taking vicodin every 4 hours. and antibiotics 4x a day.

it's hard to describe how i feel. weird. still sort of surreal. i am totally wrapped up in an ace bandage so i really don't know how much body looks right now. and the pain booster is doing a pretty good job. and my mom is doing a pretty good job of bringing me coffee and oatmeal and water and walking kitty and keeping me company. (i'm sure you can all imagine that as soon as i'm feeling up to it, the scrabble games will begin.)

so. that's it, i guess. we are at my apartment in sf. friday morning i have an appointment to take out the pain booster. then we'll drive down to los gatos to spend a week at my aunt and uncle's house. and my sweet, sweet friends have all made plans to come hang out with me to keep me from going out of my mind while i sit around.

so, that's it.
the next step is that in about 3 weeks the surgeon will start pumping me up. he'll pump me up every 2-3 weeks until i've reached size kkk. and then i'll be scheduled to get the final implants...probably in about...3-4 months.

so, there you go.
thank you for all your emails and calls and notes. so far, my favorite card has been from my aunt, susan: (front) "i've found a great new diet: the grapefruit diet..." (inside) "you put a couple of grapefruits in your sweater and everything seems a lot more proportional."

xoxo

love these ladies...and a hair update.

my hair has now been growing for 13 months.

size 38kkk!!!!!

28-year-old Sheyla Hershey of Brazil is the proud owner of the world's largest breasts -- with a staggering, life-threatening, and unfortunately-named bra size of 38KKK.

In May, ABC News reported that Hershey's breasts were 34 FFF after eight surgeries and one gallon of silicone. But she wasn't done yet. On her way to achieving her dream, she encountered certain roadblocks, like Texas law. The state limits the amount of silicone that one person put in their body because the implants could kill her. So she headed to Brazil, which has no such restrictions, and walked away with the breasts of her dreams.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/04/worlds-biggest-breasts-sh_n_163992.html

pre-op

today i had three appointments. with a nurse practicitioner. with an anesthesioloist. and with my surgeon. everyone's into getting me ready for wednesday.

two interesting things happened.

1) i walked into my anesthesiologist's office and the first thing she said was, "i think we live on the same block!" turns out she lives two houses down from me. and i see her and her kids and her beagle named barney all the time.

2) did i write about how my surgeon's nurse scheduled a post-surgery appointment for me on friday the 13th to take out my drain?
a drain?!?!

well. cely (pronounced see-lee) is the sweetest woman ever. she's about 4'5" and her outfits are all one color. the first time i met her everything she wore was purple...including her socks and her hair tie. today everything she wore was pink. including her socks, her hair tie, her ring, and her bracelet.

anyway.

she's so sweet. but with that one word, "drain," she incited 5 days of panic. i thought i would have another one of those horrible tube drains that i had from the mastectomy. the one that made me cry. the one that got clogged with blood and gunk. it was so gross. i seriously had 5 nights of sleeplessness thanks to one word.

so. what happened today felt like hearts and rainbows and unicorns compared to that. dr. simonds told me that i actually wouldn't have a drain. that what she'd meant was a small, small tube the size of spaghetti. this is inserted into the surgery area to supply direct pain killers...almost like novacain. and it's this little tiny noodley thing that they will take out on friday the 13th NOT some crazy gross drain filled with pus.

thank.
GOD.

i told dr. simonds that by telling me that, he'd just melted away all anxiety that i had about the surgery. he kind of looked at me like i was crazy. but he was definitely amused.

anyway, i'm all scheduled. wednesday february 11th. i already have my prescriptions of vicodin and antibiotics. all i have left to do is call the surgery-line on tuesday afternoon to find out the exact time of my surgery.

so now? now it's time for me to start packing for tahoe.
who better to hang out with the weekend before surgery than all of 1050 oak?










actually, all of 1050 minus steve slattery and the ghost.