WEEK 13: BYU Women's Conference and "Incision Issues"

On April 28th I made the spur of the moment decision to go to Provo to spend a few days with a couple of my old college "roomies" at BYU's Women's Conference. Me and RaeAnn Tolley have gotten together to do this the last couple of years, and had such a great time. This year Lori May was joining us. I haven't seen Lori in at least 15 years, so I wanted to go so badly this year, but I had no idea how I would feel. Monday I ended up kind of sick, but Tuesday I felt great, so I called my Dillon friend Murlene who was also going down, so I could catch a ride with her on Wednesday. Oh boy am I ever glad I did. RaeAnn and Lori and I had such a great time going to various events where we heard wonderful speakers and entertainers. It was so fun to get caught up!

Then I found out that there was another important reason I came to Provo. Saturday morning after Women's Conf., I woke up to a big wet spot on my PJ top. I called my nurse Vickie at her home (bless her heart, she gave me her cell number and told me I could call her anytime.) to let her know the wound was suddenly draining a bunch of watery stuff. She told me I needed to see the doctor right away. I told her, "Well, I just happen to be in Provo." She told me to be at the Huntsman first thing Monday morning so the doctor could take a look.

I ended up missing my ride back to Dillon with my friend Murlene on Sunday, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do! I decided I'd just go to my appointment, then ride the bus home. Monday morning Collin dropped me off at the Huntsman at 7:30 a.m. on his way to his first day of his new job. My doctor comes in, takes a look at my wound - and you just get all tingly inside when your doctor rubs his face, runs his fingers through his hair, and says: "Sit down, we need talk about this". Ooooh, not good! He told me if it had gone another week, it would have opened up enough we would be looking at the expander through the wound. So he said we had two choices: 1) Go into surgery and remove the expander (after all of the extra pain I went through to have the stupid thing put in - are you kidding?!) or 2) go into surgery, cut away some of the scar tissue, clean it up as best they could, stitch me up, put me on antibiotics for 2 weeks, and "hope I get lucky" (yeah, those were his exact words). Wow.

Needless to say I chose the smaller surgery. So a few hours later I found myself being wheeled into surgery at the UofU Hospital (since they could get me in way sooner than the Huntsman). My sister Barb came to be my babysitter, since they don't like doing surgery without some adult friend or family member there with you. After a few hours they let me leave, with 4 big "fishing line" stitches in my breast, along with a bottle of antibiotic horse pills! If I had been in Dillon when it suddenly decided to drain, I just don't know how soon I would have wanted to go running back down to Salt Lake. I could have ended up in big trouble! It was so dang lucky I happened to be in Provo right then. This incision has been such a nightmare. I have a few lovely pictures to chronicle my rocky road with this thing:

My first incision issue was a yeast infection! Yeah, a yeast infection! I didn't know those could just show up anywhere! When I saw Dr. Dickson for my Chemo Consult, he told me what it was, and to start putting Monistat cream on it. You can see how the incision is red & blistery looking, and there is a slight opening there close to my fingers. That spot, as well as another spot behind it had been a little opened up, and draining green goo, but seemed to be finally closing up. I started putting Monistat cream on it to clear up the Yeast. When I came back the next week for my first Chemo, the PA looked at it and said the yeast didn't seem totally gone, so he prescribed an oral pill for yeast infections. By that time, the one opening had started to open up a little more. I started covering the wound with gauze & tape.

Then on April 22nd when I saw Vickie, the week of Collin's grad- uation, as you can see, the Yeast infection was gone, but the wound had opened up more. That's when putting Silver Sulfadiazine on it twice a day started. I did that routine for a week. This is what the wound looked like in about the middle of that week. I found a few undissolved "dissolving" sutures floating around in the wound at one point, and grabbed them with tweezers, and snipped them, with the hope that would help it finally heal up. No such luck! It simply would not heal. That's one of the negative effects of Chemo. It effects your body's ability to heal. They usually try to avoid surgical procedures when a person is on Chemo. Now I fully understand why. By the time I saw the doctor, it was even more opened up, more deep, and started to have a few little green patches.

Then my trip to the doctor the week of Women's Conference when they decided to finally stitch the stupid thing up. And, I'm happy to say, as you can see in this pic - I got "Lucky" - it healed up just fine, and I guess thanks to the huge Antibiotic "horse pills", no infection set in. It has been such a roller coaster ride. I ended up with these stitches in til May 28 - a full month! So 3 and a-half months after my mastectomy, I was finally done with stitches. That has got to be a record! I often compared my frustration with the incision problems as the first hurdle to clear in a "Cancer Race". I took off from the starting blocks in my big race, and promptly hit the very first hurdle, landing flat on my face. Rules in this race: go back to the starting blocks. So, off I go again - then - yep! I hit the first hurdle again, landing flat on my face once more. I felt like I kept repeating that same scenario time and again because I could not clear the first hurdle of having my incision heal. So frustrating! I think I can finally head for the next hurdle now!