This Can’t Be Happening to Me
I was a healthy 37-year-old woman having a routine checkup. Then the doctor felt a suspicious lump in my breast.
(Page 2 of 3)
On Thursday I went to the nuclear medicine section of the radiation department at Seton for the bone scan. There I received an injection of a radioactive material and returned a few hours later for the pictures to be taken. The machine that the technicians lowered over my body looked like an x-ray machine, and I was able to watch the pictures on a TV-type monitor. What I saw was a dot-matrix image of my bones. None of this was painful, and it took only about an hour.
The next day I returned to the same department for a liver scan, and that afternoon I went to see yet another physician, Dr. John Doty, an oncologist. I didn’t think I could handle seeing one more doctor. In the past week I had assimilated more medical information than I thought possible. I was really feeling like a piece of meat. Dr. Doty was young, only 34, and reassuring. He had good news for me: The bone and liver scans had shown no signs of cancer. Dr. Doty recommended that I have a year of chemotherapy followed by six weeks of radiation treatments. The chemotherapy would consist of methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil administered to me on a weekly basis by Dr. Doty’s nurse, Lora Allen, and three 50-milligram tablets of cytoxan taken each day. Dr. Doty would prescribe pills to help if I had nausea. He explained that I might have hair loss, and if I did, he would write a prescription for a wig. Not all of that sunk in right away; the only thing I could think of was getting out of his office and away from all the pressure.
The operation was scheduled for the next Wednesday, May 28. I was to go into the hospital the day before. I called my mother and asked if she could come down from Bedford. I insisted that she bring a friend in case something happened while I was on the operating table.
The weekend passed much too quickly. Tuesday was here. I kept thinking that this couldn’t be happening. I had been to see Dr. Lindsey for a routine prescription, and now my whole life was changing, and there was nothing I could do about it. My mother and my aunt arrived early Tuesday afternoon. We proceeded to Seton, where I had an encouraging conversation with the admissions clerk, who informed me that she had had breast cancer and successful reconstruction the year before. After I got to my room I was reluctant to undress. I knew that it would be at least a week before I could wear street clothes again. My mother and my aunt didn’t want to leave, but finally I persuaded them to by saying that we all needed to rest.
Dr. Lindsey came in that afternoon to say hello and ask if I needed anything. My surgeon, Dr. Jones, came in to tell me that he would see me early in the morning. Then the plastic surgeon, Dr. Parker, came in and said that his assistant would call my mother and aunt during the operation with progress reports. The operation was scheduled for seven in the morning. When the night nurse brought in my sleeping pill, I was ready to be oblivious to everything.
The next morning I was awakened by a different nurse telling me that if I wanted to brush my teeth, I had only a few minutes. My mother and my aunt arrived just before I was taken downstairs. They both were smiling their it’s-going-to-be-okay smiles. I could tell that wasn’t what they were thinking.
The orderly wheeled me into the operating waiting room. It looked so serious that I almost laughed. About six or seven other patients were lying on gurneys with plastic bonnets over their hair, waiting for their surgery. Finally I was wheeled into the middle of the operating room. The pill I had taken the night before still seemed to be working. I was half asleep but scared stiff. The operating room seemed very cold, but I didn’t know if I was shaking from the cold or from fright. Tables stood along the three walls that I could see, and surgical nurses were arranging instruments on them. The nurses started telling me what a great physician Dr. H. Lamar Jones is. They said his nickname is “Lamarvelous.” The anesthesiological nurse said that she was going to give me something to relax me, and that is the last thing I remember about the surgery.
Twelve hours later I woke up. Both breasts had been removed. I had been through operations before, and I thought I was prepared for the pain that was inevitable after being cut. I wasn’t even close to being prepared for this. I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t move my body; I couldn’t even lift my arms. The nurses kept coming in to turn me and to give me pain shots and to check the two drainage bags on my left side and the two on my right. My chest hurt. My back hurt. My sides hurt. I was beginning to doubt my sanity for putting myself through this. I think I actually begged for more pain medication.
At about five or six in the morning I started to settle into a drug-induced euphoria. I was finally able to grasp a glass of water, and I was delighted. It’s amazing to get excited over holding your own glass of water. I was still groggy and scared but very happy to be alive.
Dr. Parker arrived soon after that. He said there hadn’t been any problems. He checked the incisions and the drainage bags and told me that I would be able to get out of bed later that day. I looked at him as if he had to be kidding. He removed the gauze coverings from the breasts. The skin that had been grafted onto my chest was dark blue, like skin that had been badly bruised. From the look on Dr. Parker’s face I knew that this had to be normal. At least I prayed that it was. He said that a nurse would clean and dress the incisions and check the drainage bags every four hours.
I spent the next couple of days trying to regain my strength. I walked back and forth to the bathroom, and after about three days I was able to make it down the hall to the coffee room without tiring. I was so sore that it seemed as if someone had beaten me, but because nerves had been severed, I could not feel anything around my chest, on the underside of my arms, or around the eight-inch incisions on my back. I was told the nerves would eventually heal, but there was no predicting when. My new breasts would never have feeling.
On Sunday, June 1, four days after my surgery, I began to want a bath and a shampoo. I was starting to feel better, and I really wanted to go home. Finally, on Tuesday, Dr. Jones and Dr. Parker said I could. Dr. Parker removed one of the drainage bags and showed me how to drain the fluid and to keep a record so he or Dr. Jones could determine when to remove the others. I wouldn’t be allowed to bathe until the bags were removed. I was to massage both breasts three times a day and do arm exercises to stretch the muscles. Dr. Parker also took out the stitches in my back.
I called my mother and told her I could leave. The clothes I had brought to wear home were hard to get into because I still had no strength in my arms. Trying to hide the drainage bags under a summer shirt was almost impossible. After getting home I was so worn out that I took a two-hour nap. My mother and my aunt did the grocery shopping and cooking. The next day I insisted that they return to Bedford because I wanted to be alone. So many people had been telling me what to do that all I wanted was some time by myself. Jennifer was staying with my ex-husband. I had three days before I had to see Dr. Jones, and I spent them just walking around the house and watching daytime TV.
On Friday, June 6, a friend took me to see Dr. Jones, and he removed the drainage bags. At last I was no longer what I had been calling a bag lady. Later that afternoon I joyfully prepared for my first bath. I hadn’t really thought about how much we use our arms to get in and out of the tub, but I was really determined. I ended up practically crawling in and out of the bathtub, and for three hours after that I was too exhausted to move a muscle.
My Library
