I’m almost two weeks out from my second surgery and well, I’ve been grumpy. Which probably has me less excited to want to give updates. It’s not so much because I want to hide the pain or grumpiness, but just that I’ve not felt like doing much of anything!
Overall, surgery went well, but I really do hate these drains! What are drains? They are basically two flexible silicone tubes sewed into my body that empty into two bulbs at the end. (They are JP tubes if you want to know all about it via wikipedia.) I carry the bulbs sitting in a fanny pack that someone gave me earlier this summer (I am sure she had no idea that’s how it was going to be used!).
It’s not the worst pain (that was coming out of surgery!), but it is really annoying. I can best describe it as feeling like it is a binder clip stuck to my side. It hurts less if I sit still and don’t move my arm. And of course, it is really annoying if I do something stupid like catch the tube on something and it pulls on the skin. So, yes, I have been doing a lot of sitting on the couch for the last ten days! It also makes sleep very odd and disjointed as well.
But hey, when sitting on the couch, I have made significant process on a new Stardew Valley farm (pictured) and my Murder, She Wrote marathon!
But, idea of drains is getting the icky fluids out of the body faster and safer than it would be otherwise. And before the drains can be removed, the daily output has to be down to a certain amount. Which it isn’t at yet, unfortunately. So I have to empty, measure and record a couple of times away. All in all, just a gross, annoying process!
After too much sitting, I have been trying to get out of the house more, but I still have to be pretty chill and try not to move my arms much. So that does limit the type of activity I am willing to do!
One note that I think might be useful here, I obviously opted for reconstruction surgery following my lumpectomy. Now, not everyone has to and not everyone wants to. Just like with a mastectomy, women have options following a lumpectomy. If you happen to be reading this and making similar decisions, I’m happy to walk through why I made the decisions I did or listen to your decision-making process.