Cancer Update – Part 42

5 August 2023

It was an interesting night. At least the Xanax let me get a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, it gives me a slight hangover.

The interesting part of last night was when I was getting ready to turn out the light and go to sleep and realized my bandage from the morning session with Dr. Burgers was wet and soaked through. I knew I needed to change it or I would wake up to soaked sheets.

Off came the bloody tee shirt and then I pulled away the bandage. My poor skin has had more tape on it in the last few weeks than ever before and is getting a little sensitive. I’ve always subscribed to the theory to remove it quickly and get the smarting over with. Even that theory is wearing thin. It hurts like hell to take the tape off.

What I had forgotten about was Dr. Burgers said she had packed some sterile gauze into the wound over the breast and as I removed the outer bandage I saw a long piece of gauze dangling from the opening of the incision. I didn’t think. I just decided to pull it out. Big mistake. First it was a lot of packing in the wound and as I pulled, the gauze kept coming.

It reminded me when I used to have nose bleeds as a kid and Dr. Clark packed my nose one time. I pulled that out and wondered how he got that much gauze up my nasal cavity. He had put a whole roll of gauze up my nose. This was kinda the same experience.

The minute I pulled the last of the gauze out, blood gushed all over the place. It was on me, my pajamas, the sink, the bathroom mat, my feet, and it kept coming. You forget how sticky blood is until it gets between your toes. I finally got a piece of gauze up against the incision and applied pressure. The incision was a lot larger than I anticipated. I never get to see what Dr. Burgers is doing when she’s doing it so I had no idea. You can’t really tell what she’s doing since you are numb from the lidocaine.

It kept bleeding and bleeding. Finally, I slowed it down enough to put another piece of gauze and tape over the incision and then I used the ace bandage to wrap around my chest to apply more pressure. I put another tee shirt on top of that and placed a towel on the bed.

Next was pouring hydrogen peroxide over my tee shirt and the bath mat. I really splattered blood all over the mat. After the treatment, I finally got back into bed and slept until 8:30 am.

Today I again need to change the bandage (more bloody tee shirts) and wash all the hydrogen peroxided clothes and bath mat. That’s in addition to regular laundry, cleaning house, and since I didn’t clean the pool filter yesterday, try to get that done. I’ll probably get some washing done but I figure everything else can wait.

The wound area is certainly sore but the real problem is the tightness of the skin in that area. The good news is the swelling over the left breast is down somewhat but I still have the knot of the hematoma under the arm pit.

I think when this is over I’ll write about what they don’t tell you about breast cancer surgery and treatment. They throw so much information at you that you are overwhelmed and forget to tell you little things like the hair of your nose disappears. As a bald person, I tend to grow more hair on my ears than on my head but since the first chemo treatment, I haven’t had to worry about that little issue. There are lots of other little things that you begin to notice that are not in the info sheets they give you.

I think my biggest problem (after bleeding) is diet. I’m pretty much on a junk food diet these days. I’m usually just OK with ice cream. I’m not really a big eater of it but I’ll have two scoops every so often. A gallon (they are not really gallon containers these days) will last months at my place. I’m now up to four scoops a night. I crave Tootsie Rolls. As far as real food goes, I can force it down but I almost never complete a meal.

I know why Tootsie Rolls. My cousin Jimmie’s parents owned a fruit stand they leased out a half a block away when we were kids. Jimmie and I lived on Cokes, potato chips, and, for me, Tootsie Rolls and Milk Duds. When we started going across the street to the fruit stand (we had to cross the very busy Highway 80) the original Coke machine was the type you had to put your money in and move the coke through a sliding track to get it to come out.

Back then Cokes were 5 cents, potato chips were 5 cents and Tootsie Rolls were 5 cents. We were, of course, outraged when Cokes went to 6 cents.

I haven’t walked in almost a week. I either sleep too late because of the Xanax or I have doctors’ appointments and haven’t time. Of course, I can always use the excuse of it being too hot. I could walk late in the afternoons but then I would be dodging lightning bolts. Let’s face it, it’s hard to keep a routine when going through cancer protocols and I am, if nothing, a creature of habit. That’s the biggest problem for me.

With the Xanax hangover, washing clothes, and no appetite, I think I’ll take it easy this afternoon and wait for the thunderstorms and rain downpours. There’s always a book on my iPad to read.

Stay tuned!