Bonus Surgery

Last Friday I woke up with a huge wet stain on the front of my t-shirt.......I am thinking is my boob leaking? Anyways, I investigate and this is what I found.  

This is the lower scar on my right chest (be happy I cropped the rest of my breast out of the picture)....tmi  The scar had split apart.  It is nasty.  I call my doctor because I think I have an infection.  The nurse told me to go take some pictures of it and email it to them.  Kind of weird sending pics of your Frankenstein boob through email.  Anyways, one of my doctor's residents called me later and said it looked like the beginnings of an infection.  They wanted to see me first thing Monday morning and if it got worse or I got a fever or another sign the infection was spreading to go to the emergency department.

So all weekend long I had this nasty thing to deal with.  There was so much drainage that I put a bandage on it AND a maxi-pad  to catch all the liquid and pus.......yup....pretty crazy.

So this morning I travel to Portland to see my plastic surgeon.   The resident checks it out and said he didn't think there was an infection.  He said  that the yellow stuff was fatty tissue peeking out.  He said basically the skin was really thin there and I had a hole in my breast and all the fluid and pus coming out was just my body leaking out.  He said he had never seen this happen before so he went to get my doctor.  She came in and stripped off the fatty tissue and cleaned the hole all up.  They took a culture to make sure there wasn't an infection, just in case.  She told me it would take about 2 weeks for it to heal before I could do any more fills.  She said that she would teach me how to clean it and bandage it.  She started stuffing gauze in the hole and then said....uh,oh (not what you want your doctor to say).  She took the gauze out and said that the expander was exposed in the hole.  This means SURGERY.  Once the expander is exposed to air you must replace it and it needs to be done right away.  So I am having surgery Wednesday morning.  They will open up the entire bottom scar, clean it all out, and then replace the expander.  It is an outpatient surgery.  She said the good thing about the surgery is the wound will heal faster this way....so I guess that is good.  The recovery should be pretty quick too.  So hooray, surgery #16 in about 40 hours......lucky me :)  

Then, I had my first appointment with a cardiologist this afternoon about my supraventricular tachycardia (SVT).  We talked for over an hour.  Here is a brief summary.....

- He said SVT is very unpredictable.  I could have another major episode at any time.

- I have had a really hard time recovering from my last surgery.  I am super tired most of the time, get out of breath very easily, my heart rate goes up way too easily, I have heart palpitations, my throat feels like it is closing off and I need to take deeper breathes. and I get dizzy alot.  He thinks I am having little episodes of SVT and they are causing these symptoms.

- He ordered another echocardiogram and a heart monitor that I will wear for 24 hours to see what my heart does all day and night.....to see if I am having minor episodes.

- Then he most likely will put me on a medication that will help prevent episodes and slow my heart rate down that I will take daily.  If this medication does not work, then I will most likely have surgery to fix the problem.  It is a procedure called an ablation.  It would destroy a tiny part of the heart that causes the problem.

So there is the latest and greatest in my breast cancer journey.  I hope all this pain and suffering will be worth it in the end :)

Peace out my friends.....

love,

The 1.5 Boob Wonder :)