Sooo, after returning to work early-ish following the exchange from skin expanders to implants, I’ve had quite the eventful run of complications. That means I’m sitting here at home again, recovering. Not really feeling inspired to write, but bored to death with feeling bad.
I felt so nearly normal so soon after the implants were placed that I thought I was home free. But one night, I noticed the left breast seemed to be sitting a lot lower than the right. No discomfort, but weird. I got an appointment with the plastic surgeon for the next day, and in the meantime amused myself by writing about Henny Penny and the sky falling, absolutely never suspecting there was a real problem.
OK, so the sky did fall.
While driving myself to Dr. N’s office, the left implant’s pocket started filling with blood & didn’t stop. I could tell something was happening because I felt like I couldn’t breathe on that side. In the rearview mirror I could see a really big bulge over the top of my shirt, near my clavicle. Thank heavens for this fancy hands-free car phone stuff–it let me call home and leave a message for my husband: “Keep your cell phone on–I may need you!”
It’s a blur, but I did get to the office. Dr. N inserted a drain to relieve the pressure and hopefully save the reconstruction on that side. A friend who wasn’t supposed to be at work that day (but heeded the little bird who told her to show up) was available to drive me to the hospital faster than if we’d waited for an ambulance.
After the requisite 8 minutes of chaos, the ER figured out who I was and what to do with me. I was just grateful my friend was willing to stay & hold my hand while I writhed and cursed in and out of consciousness. I cannot adequately describe how it feels when over a liter of blood tries to burst through your skin, so I’ll leave it at that.
I remember thinking they’re just going to let me lay here and die and I’ll never see Brian again. But he’d been called, and soon after the thought, he was there with me, scared to death, too.
All was resolved with a timely return to surgery. Dr. N was suitably impressed by how much blood I’d lost (about 1.5 liters), and happy to have seen the cause of it–one of the little blood vessels that forms during reconstruction was torn & could be seen merrily pumping away. So, that got fixed, a new implant was placed, and I went home the next day with–yes–yet another drain. Not to mention tearful, weak, and pitiful from sudden blood loss.
So relieved to have a husband willing to help with the care and feeding of a PICC line.
A week goes by uneventfully, tho’ I’m secretly terrified of a repeat. It happened once– who’s to say getting in the shower and washing my hair (as I’d done the morning of my appointment), won’t spring another leak? I’m Catholic. It’s gotta be my fault, right?
So it’s back to Dr. N’s for inspection and to have the drain removed. All seems well until about 5 hours later, when I start feeling achy and warm. That progresses to joints screaming and hot. My temp goes from 101 to 104 within about an hour, and Brian’s making frantic calls to the on-call doc, then Dr. N, then I’m in the car and being carried back to the hospital where I stay for the next few days getting IV antibiotics.
Thank heavens for modern medicine & modern antibiotics. Infection after trauma–surgical or not–is the kind of stuff that killed people when we didn’t have what we’ve got today.
I’m home now getting the antibiotics here, as there’s no oral equivalent of what they need to give me to be sure there won’t be a recurrence. I’ve got what’s called a PICC line–an intravenous catheter that starts in my upper arm and dumps into one of the really big veins near the heart.
So far, each day is a bit better, and I’ve woven for myself an explanatory fiction that makes me less afraid I’ll have another bleed. I can think of the infection as old-fashioned sclerotherapy (therapy that scars) inside that pocket, sealing off any potential little bleeders that might lurk there.
And there’s Dr. N’s assurance that “this never happens.”
Except in one case he had where a woman’s stove electrocuted her.
And me 
