On the road to recovery - at home.

The first week at home was spent drugged to the eyeballs with painkillers and sleeping approximately twenty hours each day. I was able to keep upright long enough to do my physio, take a shower, have a small bite to eat and say hi to the kids before falling back into bed. Every second day I had to go up to our local hospital and have my drain changed and my dressing checked by the community health nurses.

It took a week to eventually get my pain under control. A quick trip to the GP and a new type of painkiller helped me to cope better. There are several types of pain that I've been dealing with. The first is the tenderness of the breast itself and the site of the drain, which is a constant dull ache. The second is the burning, throbbing pain around the ribs, like someone is trying to pry them apart with a crowbar. The third is the sharp hot pain in the armpit whenever the arm moves and the fourth is the feeling of stinging nettles being swiped across the arm, shoulder and upper back at random intervals as the nerves start coming back to life. I naturally have a fairly high pain threshold so I was able to adjust to the discomfort but the aim as I later found out is to manage the pain so as to NOT feel it at all. One of the community health nurses finally explained to me what I needed to be doing in order to achieve that. If only the hospital had given me that advice upon being discharged. It is the one thing I've found frustrating...the lack of continuity. So many different health professionals and so much conflicting advice or gaps in helpful information.

I finally managed to snavel a home visit from a great Community Health nurse last Friday. Jane is a fabulously funny, no nonsense woman with a surgical background and 40 years of experience. I am lucky to now have her look after me for the duration of my treatment, including weekly contact during chemo and radiotherapy. It was great timing too. My nipple began bleeding on Thursday so it gave me peace of mind to have it looked at. She changed my dressing, adjusted my drain so that it didn't pull and said that it looked like a small infection was forming and I should go to the hospital if it got worse.

On Saturday I woke up feeling like I'd been hit with the flu. I went into town with Mum and stocked up at the chemist while she did the grocery shopping and by the time we got home an hour later I was feeling very average. Before long I was throwing up and unable to keep painkillers or fluids down. Hubby took me to our local ER and they popped me on a drip of antibiotics and gave me a wafer of Zofran which was enough to calm the nausea and get me back on track. The infection and the cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics were knocking my body around and I needed an anti-nausea drug. For anyone who hasn't started treatment yet...ask for a script for anti-nausea drugs just in case you need it. I burst into tears in the ER, it was just too much to cope with. I felt broken and weak and exhausted and just wanted it all to ease up. The staff were great and very understanding. The doctor sent me home with another script for more antibiotics to clear up the infection in my breast and a stash of maxalon and zofran to ward off further nausea. My body has settled down and I've slept the rest of the weekend away.

I decided when I started this blog that it would be a no holds barred account of my journey and as such I've started taking photos of my body so that others can get a better idea of what it is like to go through this type of treatment.

This is me, eleven days after surgery, with the drain still in and the dressings still on.

Above is the drain that collects the fluid (blood etc) that naturally occurs at the site of the wound after surgery. It gradually reduces from about 100ml a day to about 15mls a day. After a couple of weeks the drain can be removed and the body re-absorbs the small amount of fluid left. I carry the drain in a little cotton bag that I'd whipped up on the sewing machine before I went in for surgery. It has to be worn 24/7 so a good tip is to make two or three if you can. Another good tip...REMEMBER that you're wearing it! I can't tell you how many times I've hung my bag over the back of a chair and then gotten up and walked off only to be snagged by the line. Entertaining for any onlookers, somewhat embarrassing to the snagee!

I have my post surgical check up on Tuesday. Hopefully the drain will come out and the news will be good reguarding the pathology report. I'm also hoping against hope that the infection in my breast will be under control by then and I won't have to face losing the implant. It's a possibility and if it does happen it will only be a setback. I will get there in the end!

To finish off this post I wanted to share this incredibly inspiring clip. A dear friend shared it with me and I wanted to inspire others. No matter what our bodies look like during and after breast cancer treatment...we are beautiful!!!

'The Light That Shines' a story for all from InBedWithSue.com on Vimeo.

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