Mastectomy
January 24th, 2020. The morning of my surgery. I woke up at 4:30 am in order to get to the hospital on time for my 7 am surgery. I was so nervous I couldn’t believe the time was here and I was actually going through with it. I really had no idea what to expect as I’ve never had any type of surgery before nor have I ever been hospitalized. My anxiety level was through the roof and once they gave me a hospital gown and a pair of those hospital socks with the rubber soles on the bottom, I knew it was getting real.
Once I changed into my proper garments and sitting on my bed in the pre-op waiting room I started shaking uncontrollably. My husband asked one of the nurses if they could give me something to calm me down and one of the nurses said “Yes I think you need something, you’re making me nervous!” He gave me a small pill to swallow and then slowly started injecting some medicine through my i.v. Once the meds got into my system the shaking stopped, and I felt more at ease and then just like that they started wheeling me down the hall into the surgery room. After wheeling me in through two large swinging doors the nurse introduced me to a few more nurses in the room and after that I remember one of them asking me to take my hair tie out, and once I did that I was out.
The next thing I knew I was waking up in a recovery room with a nurse watching over me who was very kind and got me ice chips and water. My mouth was really dry from all the medications and ice chips felt so amazing on my tongue although I was still pretty out of it. Once I was awake enough to respond to the nurse they wheeled me to my room where I’d stay for the night. My Dad and husband were there right away and I was so happy to see their faces when they walked around that curtain. When I fully woke up I realized I was hooked up to an I.V., had 2 drains coming out each of the sides of my breasts and I had a huge bandage over my entire chest. I had no idea what my breasts looked like but it didn’t matter, I was so proud of myself in that moment for going forward with this life changing decision. After a few hours of laying around my nurse came in to check on me and suggested I try to stand up and walk around. I scooted to the edge of the bed and put my feet on the ground. I was feeling fine and thought I was ready for a walk. As soon as I stood up my blood pressure got really low and I got dizzy and nauseous. The nurse sat me back down on the bed and told me to lay back down quickly but it was too late I reached for a bucket and threw up my smoothie. We decided I should would wait a little while until the rest of the anesthesia wore off before I attempted another walk. The nurse insisted I call her for help when I needed to get up to go to the bathroom. A couple hours passed and I felt like I needed to go pee so my husband pressed the button to call for the nurse, and they told me she would be there shortly. We waited 5 minutes, then 10 and I finally I couldn’t wait any longer and just jumped up and my husband helped me to the bathroom in a hurry. I didn’t get dizzy or nauseous and I made it there and back just fine.
The next morning I was able to stand up and I took a walk around the hallways and back and forth to my window in my room. I ordered lunch and as soon as I finished my quesadilla around 11:30 am they authorized my release. Still drowsy from the anesthesia, I was wheeled down and out of the hospital in a wheelchair and situated in the front seat for the long three hour car ride home.
