I'm Home

The doctors and nurses totally left it up to me about when I should leave the hospital. At first, I was baffled, thinking that they are the experts and shouldn't they know when I'm ready to go home? After two days of being examined every few hours, though, I realized that they each don't know that much. Dr. Cooper is an expert on cutting people open and removing sick parts. Dr. Baum is excellent at putting in new boobs and making you feel good about them. And while one nurse may be good at sympathizing and another may be good at controlling pain, NOBODY is an expert at everything. After I figured that out, I decided that I know my body best and I could make the correct phone calls if I decided that something was wrong. So I packed up and went home yesterday afternoon, about 48 hours after the boobs came off.

So far, I'm really just weary. I'm in much less pain than I'd have ever expected. Truthfully, it's more sore from using different muscles to sit up and roll over than it is hurting from the stitches. But everything takes a lot of effort and occasionally I feel weak, so I'm spending a lot of time in bed and taking naps.

I won't go in to much detail because even Paul is grossed out by this, but the most difficult thing so far is the drains. They hang off the sides of my body and I have to monitor how much fluid is coming out of me a few times every day. I have no problem with doing that, but it's a pain to have four extra appendages and being afraid to roll on them. I'm looking forward to having them out almost as much as I'm looking forward to meeting with the oncologist.

I'm not sure how much I'll update in the next few days. Don't worry about me: I'm sure I'll be getting gradually stronger. It's just that I like to use this blog to sort out information I'm given and I'm in a holding pattern right now. I have appointments next week with both Dr. Cooper to go over everything they found when they took off the boobs and lymph nodes and then Dr. Kirshner, the oncologist, to talk about what to do with that information. That's when I'll have a bit more to say.

But you never know. Maybe the kids will do some funny things this week and I'll have to write about it.