Chapter 25: All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Tits.

December 25, 2024. 8:05 pm. Incoming text from Mayo Clinic: “Erin, go to Eisenberg Admissions (Charlton Building entry) @ 07:30 AM tomorrow.” The time has come for my reconstruction. Just like with my mastectomy, I didn’t receive my check-in time until the night before. That’s just how Mayo works with major surgerys. They like to keep you on the edge of your seat. I can’t help but be annoyed by this practice, as I’m a planner, I like to know my schedule far in advance. I even plan our motorcycle trips a year in advance. But, hey, Mayo has a method to their madness, so I adapt. It’s been about 10 months since my mastectomy. I’ve been roaming around with a tissue expander in place of where my boob used to be. It feels like a boulder: hard, heavy & unyielding. I’m excited to finally get it taken out and swapped out with an implant, to feel like a real girl again. I’m actually getting both tits operated on: a full sized implant on the mastectomy side, and a smaller implant on the healthy side for symmetry. At my pre-op appointment a week earlier, my surgeon told me she would also be harvesting fat from other parts of my body to do fat grafting on my breasts along with the implants. She uses the fat for contouring, to make the breasts look more natural. Sounds good to me! I like the idea of my fat migrating to fun places!
With that, Brian and I crack open a bottle of our favorite Mead which we keep on reserve: Dansk Mjød, Odin’s Skull. We toast to my cancer journey approaching the finish line. We toast to my ability to live a full & productive life this past year, in spite cancer. We toast to only living 40 minutes away from the #1 top-rated medical facility in the world. We toast in favor of another successful surgery. We toast to life. We toast to us.
My alarm chirps at 5:00 am. My optimism from the night before has morphed into nervous dread. I think back to the past decade of health related bullshit. My Crohn’s Disease diagnosis 8 years prior was a life altering event that I’ll be dealing with until the day I die. No cure for Crohn’s. Hell, I could write another blog dedicated solely to Crohn’s…which I just might do once I close the book on cancer. Anyway, I digress. As I’m readying myself for the trip to Rochester, my mind swirls around the amount of time I have spent at hospitals over the last decade. The slicing & dicing, poking & proding, the intrusiveness. I am so sick of this shit! I’m only 47 years old (turning 48 in a few days). Is this going to be my life now? I might as well buy a permanent room at Mayo for all the time I spend there. I can Airbnb it to out other patients when I’m not there. With on-site maintenance and housekeeping, it seems like the perfect hassle-free passive income! Umm, maybe I should call my Realtor and see if he can make this happen! Ha!
I’m not as much nervous about the surgery itself as I am of the anesthesia. I realize this is irrational, considering I’ve never had issues with anesthesia in the past. The thing is, I’ve never been comfortable with the prospect of being unconscious, at the mercy of others. The physical vulnerability makes me uneasy. What if there’s a freak incident, and I never wake up again? I don’t want my last moments on earth to be that of a sterile room surrounded by strangers in matching gowns & masks. I might as well be abducted by space aliens.
Pull yourself together!
I collect my bearings and head downstairs where Brian is waiting for me with the car running. I’m still on the verge of tears after letting my irrational worry overtake me. I become a bit frantic as I gather my things, trying to chase away my unease with hustle & bustle. Brian notices, and tries to calm me down. As soon as we hit the highway, I quit fighting myself and unloaded my worry, all teary eyed and snot nosed. Brian, being the ever patient and calming force he is, let me cry it out and told me that I had every right to feel this way. After my emotional purge was over, I was able to snap back into TCB mode (Taking Care of Business). LET’S DO THIS!
We arrive at Mayo and check in at Eisenberg. I’m called back relatively quickly. The pre-op nurse instructs me to get naked and put on a robe that is WAY too large for me. I can’t even get the gown to stay on my shoulders, it kept slipping down, bearing my weird titties. I ask for a smaller gown, but I’m told extra large is the only size they have in that area. Even the hospital socks are extra large. I assume they don’t get very many fun-size humans coming through here. Oh well, I can deal. Brian and I sat in my pre-op room for a good couple of hours. Several people come by to brief both of us on what to expect. I’m finally IV’ed up, and rolled out to surgery. As soon as the OR doors swing open, I scan the room for Dr. V (my Plastic Surgeon). With masks and full gear on, it’s hard to determine who’s who. Back when I had my mastectomy, my Surgeon, Dr. Piltin, was right there. She made her presence known as soon as I was wheeled in. Knowing she was there put me at immediate ease, a familiar face, the person in charge. This time around, my Surgeon is nowhere in my line of sight. I’m getting anxious, and I think the staff can sense it. One of the nurses comes around to me and asks about my personal life. She tells me she already did some web sleuthing, and found out that I’m an Artist and Motorcyclist. The rest of the team pipes up and asks about my work, and what kind of motorcycles I ride. They assure me that they will take good care of me, that I’ll be working and back on 2 wheels in no time. They put the oxygen on my face and I start tensing up, it’s hard to breathe, tears begin to well up. The Anesthesiologist keeps to telling me to breath. Why am I so fucking scared? This isn’t my first rodeo. The sleuthy nurse grabs my hand and tells me she’s not going anywhere, and to squeeze her hand as hard as I need. I squeeze so hard, I feel like I may hurt her, so I release her hand…but she insists that I squeeze with all my might. And, I slowly drift away.
I wake up back in my Post-Op room. According to the nurse in charge of my after care, I had actually been awake for quite while. I woke up in the operating room with the ventilation tube still down my throat. I was lucid, chatty, and cracking jokes (after the tube was pulled out, of course). I have zero memory of this, but according to the nurse, I was very entertaining. Glad I could be of service! I feel like a total space cadet, as if I can’t even string a coherent sentence together. I apologize to the nurse for being so discombobulated. She replies: “The fact that you are saying words like ‘discombobulated’ proves that you are more lucid that you think. You are a lot more lucid than most patients at this stage.” That makes me feel better. My brain isn’t broken after all! Brian shows up as soon as he gets the text informing him that I’m out of surgery. The nurse briefs us on how the procedure went, and gave Brian after-care instructions. The nurse tells me I’m free to go. Just like my mastectomy, I get to go home same-day. Brian helps me into a wheelchair, and we attend to my first order of business: COFFEE! I had skipped my morning coffee due to pre-op fluid restrictions. I was Jonesin’ so hard! Ummm…this is one of the best coffee’s I ever had! Second order of business: pharmacy pick-up. And, with that, we head back to the car and get our asses home.
I’m feeling very little pain on the drive home, as the hospital pumped me full of some hardcore drugs. Once we arrive home, I unsnapped my top to see what I looked like. I’m not allowed to remove my compression garments or shower for the first 48 hours, so I’m not able to see their handywork. The compression bra is nothing new. I had to wear one after my mastectomy. The compression band around my abdomen is new for me, and it’s a total boner-killer. It’s white and very thick with padding. I look like the Michelin Man. My chest starts to hurt as the evening progresses. I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Sitting makes it worse…but, I must sit per doctor’s orders, so I use the bed wedges Brian bought for my mastectomy to set up a comfortable perch to sit at. Sleeping really sucks. By this point, any move I make hurts, so getting comfortable enough to fall asleep is a challenge. I do manage to get about 4 hours in. I can’t complain, considering I got ZERO hours of sleep the night of my mastectomy. I manage to roll out of bed at about 6:30am the next morning. Holy shit, this is rough! I can feel everything now. I steadily make my way to the bathroom: piss, brush my teeth, brush my hair, give myself a whores bath (baby wipes on the stinky parts). Did I mention that I can’t shower for the first 48 hours? GROSS! I then head down stairs to slam my water and brew my coffee, just like any other morning. I take my meds, pour a cup of Joe, grab my MacBook, and write my ramblings for your reading pleasure! Writing is as physical as I’m allowed to be at this point.