Bruised & Bummed but Moving On - 11/29/20

My hand Friday night

Because all of my cards and notes from everyone are still on the closet door where our Christmas Countdown calendar goes, Mason and I decided this was a good place for it to hang. It made for a fun game of fling the ornaments b/c they stick to the door with their magnets.

A little bit of Christmas cheer to our house! The tree will go up later this week or this weekend but Mason helped put everything out while I supervised and directed.

My hand by Saturday night. It had spread, was red and hurt! Enough to warrant pictures being sent to my sister to ask her if we needed to have it looked at or not.

So clearly I was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia on Tuesday when I posted my attempt at an update - Tim kind of made fun of me for what I posted and it made for a good giggle. Now he’s trying not to burst out laughing whenever I try to do something with my arms because I can’t reach up above shoulder height so I’m short armed like a TRex and we are getting a good laugh. It’s how we’re getting thru this right now but I’m on the mend and that’s what counts.

Monday, after we got home and I had been in bed for a while I needed to go to the bathroom so I got up on my own and made it to the bathroom without any issue but coming out I lost my balance and tried to tackle Tims chest of drawers with my shoulder and head. I ended up with a bruised shoulder and bump above my left eyebrow but thankfully it wasn’t worse than that. After that, I was relegated to our bed and was not allowed to get up unless Tim was there to help me. 🙃 I also developed a horrendous bruise on my right hand where the pre-op nurse who was starting my IV hit a valve in my vein and blew it. It didn’t look too bad until Friday and then it started to spread over the back of my hand and got red. Enough so that we were sending pictures to my sister asking if it was something to be concerned about or not. A few warm compresses on it and it’s looking MUCH better! Thanks, D!

This journey continues to be a roller coaster ride of emotions for us and while we were hoping to have most of it behind us by now, we have a pretty serious discussion and decision that will be taking place on Tuesday when we meet with my Plastic Surgeon for my first post-op appointment.

After my surgery on Monday, we were given a card with my implant information on it so that we could add it to my file. We set it on my binder with all of the other medical info we’ve complied since July and didn’t think anything about it. Wednesday morning, I just happened to pick up the card and sit down and look up the implant info on my phone. When it pulled up, the ones that were shown were not the implants that we had said I wanted. At first, I thought I had looked at the wrong thing so I looked them up again and got the same information again. I immediately went to Tim (in tears of course) and told him what I had found out. Tim put a call into my plastic surgeon but he was in surgery so we waited for him to call back. Once we were able to talk to him he said he thought we had told him we wanted the ones he had used and apologized. This is like the worst-case scenario from my post from last Sunday about worrying about my “new shoes” not fitting right. While they fit okay and currently look okay, instead of the stilettos that I asked for, I got a totally different style of shoe! To say that we’re disappointed is an understatement. We’ve been so pleased with my Dr up until this point. For now, I’ve been told to let my body heal, let the swelling go down, let them “fall into place” and then decide whether I want to change them out or not or just live with what I’ve got. We will be having a pretty frank conversation on Tuesday morning to find out HOW such an error can be made. We’re just dumbfounded. And yes, I was asked multiple times on Monday before I was put under what my name was, what my birthdate is and what I was having done during my surgery. Each time I answered Elizabeth Riley, 10/17/68, we’re removing my tissue expanders and replacing them with permanent implants. But never was I asked which type of implants. We just assumed they would be the ones that we had discussed at my last fill appointment with him on 10/20.

Physically, I’m doing okay. Still sore and having some muscle tightness in my chest and in true Libby fashion I probably overdid things today supervising Mason putting up our Christmas decorations but it felt good to change things up a bit and bring some holiday spirit into our lives. Mentally, I’m trying to accept what’s happened, and get used to my new body and what it looks like now. It’s still hard to believe that a little over 4 1/2 months ago, the words “breast cancer” were never even a consideration in our lives - it’s crazy how quickly things can change in the blink of an eye.