Choices

Good morning, No the Dr did not give me Remdesivir because we don't know when it all started since I had a stuffy nose for a week before I tested positive if that makes sense. I either caught it from going to the market or the lab office. Haven't been anywhere else. I tested last Thursday and the oncologist said to skip Friday's chemo which would have meant that I skipped two weeks of chemo and then come on Friday, Jan 12th. Which meant 3 weeks with no chemo. The good thing is that some of the neuropathy in my hands and feet has subsided. Still feel like I have a bad cold right now. So far still testing positive.

@LovesPrimes I was trying to figure out how to personally ask you how you were doing post-op, as I knew you'd had your reconstruction surgery delayed a few days and then I'd gone into radiation treatments and susequent appointments. I'm so glad it was a successful procedure, but sorry you're in discomfort and for yours and your husband's juggle with all of this.

Zoey is absolutely precious, and I can relate to how empty one's home feels after caring for pup family members their whole lives and the loss that inevitably follows.

The details of your fur-babies' traumatic passing unknown, I'm honestly shocked by the similarities of our circumstances: I too (well, I and my now ex-husband) lost our 2 rescue dogs we've had for 15 and 13 years within weeks of each other in early 2023. I couldn't imagine life without them, and now that I no longer have the companionship of my ex OR my babies, I understand fully how insufferable it might have seemed to have gone through this temporary derailment without dogs to put your attention on and their unconditional comfort in return.

Kiss Zoey for me. You're so fortunate to have both her and your husband's company. :)

Hello, all! Thank you again for prayers and good wishes. My friend's flight was only delayed an hour and I'm so grateful to have her here. She's currently picking up our daughter from work and in the process of making baked potato soup for us.

@claoh I am ecstatic for your news! I know it's a lot to process but so thankful for the absence of cancer in the rest of your body.

@marlakeeth I'm so sorry you're dealing with Covid. That really sucks.

@LifeInBloom100 Thanks for checking on me! Yes, we lost both our rescue dogs close together. We had only had them a year, so nowhere near as long as you, but the trauma came from one killing the other. She didn't mean to; she was defending herself. But we couldn't keep her after that and honored our agreement from adoption that if we ever couldn't keep her, we would return her to that rescue. The one that was killed was smaller but, a couple months before this happened, she developed some mental health issue where she would viciously attack the larger one. We had seen the vet and gotten her on medication, they spent a month apart in our home, and as prescribed we slowly brought them back together and thought the issue resolved. I will never be able to forgive myself for not putting the gate between them when we left the house that afternoon. I still have nightmares about the sights of everything when we returned. I'm going to start weeping if I relive it any more. So, I'm going to post a pic of Zoey in PJ's she got for Christmas.

@Sadiej Please ask whatever you want! I'm just not always good at explaining things, especially medical. I knew that "vacuum assisted closure" was part of the surgery plan but didn't really understand things, at least partially, until after surgery. My abdominal incision is hip to hip and was heavily padded and taped down with a tube coming out of the left side that connected to a tube coming from the hospital vac while I was hospitalized and then transferred to a smaller, more portable one when I was discharged. I heard it called a "negative pressure vac" by a nurse and that makes me think that instead of sucking it was applying pressure to the incision area to help it close? The one at the hospital was on my IV tree. The one I brought home had a strap I could use on the walker or I could just set it on a side table while on a recliner. It had to be charged every night (while still connected to me). The surgeon's office disposed of it after removal. Said it can only be used for one person. Let's see how much they charged insurance for that!! I'm so sorry that it sounds like you have yours for so long.

The "watch area" just means a small area under the left breast that isn't healing as well as the areas around it. If it gets worse, they need to know immediately. For now, we watch and see and my husband puts extra prescription antibacterial cream and bandages on it.

For pain, I'm on gabapentin, methocarbamol, and 800 mg ibuprofen. I call it the pain trio. For "rescue med", I'm taking tramadol. Supplies are getting low as I approach two weeks since surgery, but, if it's like the mastectomy, I know they will work with me to get more until OTC meds are sufficient. I probably need to be less prohibitive about narcotics. There was a lot of addiction in my family of origin, so I tend to be overly cautious with that kind of stuff. Those first twelve hours, when I had a morphine pump, the nurses kept commenting how little I used it. Said they had patients that would press it 50+ times an hour. I felt like I used it a lot but apparently not.

I had been confused why the upper abdominal area, below and above surgery areas, was so painful and tender to the touch. Lo and behold, I saw on a post-op note yesterday that during surgery, they removed two of my ribs!! I had no idea.

Well, here is the promised picture. Hope it makes us all smile (even though she's not thrilled about it!!) 🤣

I've used a cold gel cap for my chemo. Mostly for Taxotere since it can cause permanent hair loss, but also for Herceptin and Perjeta. They're gel inserts which go into a gray color fleece type cap I found on Amazon. I put the entire cap into the freezer in a plastic bag the night before and they have a freezer/fridge at the infusion center until it's needed. I also use gel mittens and booties to minimize neuropathy.

My head is shaved because my hair was starting to fall out. No wig, but I have several fun chemo caps/hats from Amazon that color coordinate with many of my clothes. The good ones run ~$20-$30, made of bamboo and cotton.

Hope this helps.

Hello ladies!

I know I should get on these boards more often! Claoh your news on your PET scan made me so happy! That is so great! Plus the fact that you only have to do 4 treatments instead of 6! I went through 12 treatments before my body finally rebelled on me and ended up with my two hospital stays in November and December. Still recovering from it all. In fact, I plan on getting with my doctor about the possibility of my having hypersomnia because all I have been doing is sleeping 24/7 for the last few weeks. For anyone who is curious, here is the link:

Hypersomnia During Cancer Treatment - https://myhealth.ucsd.edu/YourFamily/Women/34,18342-1#:~:text=One%20side%20effect%20of%20cancer,Hypersomnia%20is%20different%20from%20fatigue

Again I apologize for such a long hyperlink.

On another note, I got one of those caps that Marla suggested. It really helps with my headaches. Glad I got one! :)

Lovesprimes, thank you for your explanations. But I am a little curious about why they would remove two ribs. Is that common procedure?

Marla hope you are feeling better. Do you have to stop all treatment until you recover?

Seems we are all on different paths but headed in the same direction.

Be blessed ladies!

@claoh , I'm hoping the morphine is working for you. I had the opposite reaction: oxy caused me to have dark thoughts and dreams so badly that the pain relief wasn't worth it. In the hospital, the morphine pump was perfect and the nurses were surprised I didn't use it more. But the small doses more frequently worked great for me. Then they switched me to oral morphine; that worked okay but mostly knocked me out for a couple hours and I'd wake up in pain again and have to wait hours for another dose. So, now my rescue med is tramadol and I've mostly used it late at night when the pain is at its worst.

@Sadiej It all depends on location of vessels. Since DIEP involves not just transfer of fat but of tissue and vessels as well, they had to remove a rib on each side to get access to my mammary vessels.

Second post-op was today. They continue to say things look good but both things I hoped for didn't come to pass. Still have two drains. Still have to get help getting out of recliner. (Latter because I'm only 18 days post-op and abdominal incision still very vulnerable; apparently, they closed multiple layers there.) I'm also supposed to wear an abdominal binder 24/7 now. Struggling to get used to it but it is helping with the pain above the umbilicus.

Really enjoyed having my friend here but she went home Sunday. I'm back to watching copious TV/movies and reading a little bit when I have the currently rare attention span to do so. I'm also realizing that although I'm a little over 1/4 of the way through time off work, I'm much longer away from being recovered. I stumbled upon a website for someone else who chose DIEP after breast cancer. Only poked around a bit but really appreciate her "keeping it real" and blunt honesty. In case anyone else would benefit from it, the website is https://nancyspoint.com/

I'm feeling distressed about disability from work. The third party administrator wants further documentation from surgeon's office for medical necessity like current treatment notes. But I get copied on those notes and they include pics they take of my surgical sites. It feels so invasive and wrong to require that level of documentation to approve my short term disability.