God is Building My Empathy Resume

Well, not many people can say they have had 4 surgeries in 6 months. Sounds like enough to start a new club!  This past week was pretty stressful. First I had a reaction to a new antibiotic, and that was not a fun experience, then I finally got started on my tamoxifen medicine after letting it sit on my bathroom counter for a week. Then, mid week I noticed my surgery scars were not looking so good. I had an appointment with my plastic surgeon scheduled on Friday.

Thursday night around 1:15 I woke up feeling warm all over and couldn't really go back to sleep until around 4. Friday morning I noticed the blister that was on my skin was seeping so I put a gauze on it, stalked the school nurse for awhile, and prayed I could make it until my 11:45 appointment without anything really bad happening. I had a feeling I shouldn't go alone, so I texted my friend Emily and asked her if she could go with me. She picked me up and when we got to the Dr. office, I had to wait about 2 hours because he was behind and it was SO hot in the room I thought I was going to faint.

Finally Dr. Hughes came in and took a look at me. He was really quiet, then he said, "Well, what we've got here is a (insert some medical term I didn't understand), i.e. an exposed tissue expander." Pause. "The best thing to do is take it out and let you heal." Pause. "We are going to send you to surgery." Me: "Do I need to schedule that?" Doc: "No, Shae will schedule it and we will do it today." Me: "Oh."  Dr. Hughes said it happens to some people and I didn't do anything wrong. The surgeon in October did a good job scraping all the cancer out, and that is what is important. My skin didn't have enough support to be able to withstand a blister or anything like that going wrong.

From there they sent me over to the hospital to get ready for a 4:30 surgery. It took about an hour and I was able to come home around 7. Brian came over from work and Emily stayed with me until they took me to surgery.

To be honest, it feels pretty good not to have that expander in there. I will take a few months and think about what I want to do. If  they have to take skin from somewhere else to do it again, I will definitely choose the prosthetic route. I will try one for a few months and see how I like it anyway.

I will keep you updated! Thank you for keeping up with me and caring and praying and being there for me.