Returning to Light

Lily blossom

“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.”
― Aberjhani

I hadn’t planned on letting this sit idle for two months without any updates, but I have been focusing on getting my senses back in order, so to speak.

I had my second cancer removal surgery on the 8th of last June. I was initially so relieved to finally be getting the surgery done, since it had been cancelled and rescheduled 3 times.
It didn’t go as planned.

Nothing about my hospital stay went well. Nothing.

After the surgery while in the post op area, I complained of severe pain. Abnormal pain. I stressed that something was very wrong and my left side felt like it had been injected with acid, absolutely on fire. I alerted all of this to the post op nurse by my side, but I’m pretty sure the staff assumed that I was a drug seeking patient, that I wanted more pain medicine just for kicks, or whatever reason.

That is not me by any stretch of the imagination. I have a very high pain tolerance and there are very few pain medications that I can take without having severe reactions. I do not like them. Any of them. I don’t like the way they make me feel. I am also not a complainer, unless there is an urgent need.
After 2.5 hours of raising a huge red flag and complaining loudly, the nurse finally checked my bandaged area on my left side. I had developed a very large hematoma the size of a softball and was basically bleeding out.

I was rushed back into surgery where they opened me up again and cauterized more vessels. I was finally taken back up to a room somewhere around 8:30 pm. My first surgery began around 12:45, so it was a very long day, to put it lightly

.My ptsd was triggered badly and I was so very hyper-alert. I couldn’t sleep a wink and my blood pressure kept bottoming out. The care I received was unacceptable, with the exception being my surgeon. At least she listened to me.
So my outpatient surgery stretched into a 3 1/2 day hospital stay. This is all still difficult for me to talk/write about, as it triggers very unpleasant feelings, mostly the feeling of being unsafe.

I have long known that the healthcare in our country is broken, but the care I received was appalling. I will never step one foot back in that facility again.

Thankfully, a close friend that I have known since grade school had come up to stay with us, to help out with whatever we needed help with. Our vehicle had broken down recently, so we were able to use her car and Mojo didn’t feel abandoned. My husband had a wise and caring ear to talk to while he sat home and worried. Mostly, she reminded me that I need to laugh now and then and she has always had the ability to make me laugh until my sides hurt. Good stuff.
Her help was invaluable and I will be forever grateful for her large heart and helping hands. I needed her more than I had realized I would. Help is not something that I am used to asking for often, but I’m learning that there are some things I simply cannot do alone.

True friends are gold.

My recovery has been long and quite painful. I have two large incisions in my armpit and three across my breast. I am only now finally able to use my left arm, but I still have to be aware of how I use it. My emotional recovery has been more difficult. Ptsd isn’t about just one trauma, it brings up traumas of the past, and I have had more than a few medical traumas. A whole range of emotions from fear, anger, frustration and sadness come with that territory and they can feel almost crippling at times. But the nightmares have diminished and my fight/flight response has as well.

The pathology report showed that my surgeon removed all of the cancer from my breast, and out of 8 lymph glands that were biopsied, 4 were cancerous. It could have been worse.

I will be seeing my oncologist on the 27th of this month, and will know more of what lies ahead after our visit. I have many many questions and concerns. I still tire very easily and want to go into the next phase of my treatment with my eyes wide open, but it’s also important that my trust in the process is restored. That will take time, as well as many hikes and spending as much time out in nature as we can. That is where my medicine has always lived and it’s where my energy is restored best.