Read Online Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Geralyn Lucas
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room. I try to say something but my voice is hoarse from the tube that has been down my throat during surgery.
“I feel so much performance anxiety. Please, someone else speak.”
That makes everyone laugh and we begin to talk about everything except what we’re all thinking about: my wound. No one will talk about it.
A young doctor comes into the room to change my dressing and everyone leaves. I try to turn my neck as far away as I can when he starts to peel away the thin white layers of gauze that I feel are wet and blotched with fresh blood. I close my eyes and remember never being able to look when I got shots when I was little. I can’t look. Not yet. The doctor also unscrews the plastic drains that are sewn into my chest to catch my oozing wound fluid. He empties the fluid, screws back the drains, and checks my morphine pump. He scribbles something on my chart and quietly disappears into the bright white corridor outside my room. It would be strange to chitchat and I am way too tired to be nice or flirt.
That first night, my chest is burning and pounding because the anesthesia is wearing off. I tell Tyler how much it hurts and he tells me it’s normal and to keep pushing my morphine pump for more pain meds. I keep buzzing for the nurse, but she just keeps screaming at me over the intercom that a doctor is on his way. This is definitely not General Hospital . Finally, four hours later, the pain resident comes to visit me. Tyler didn’t want me to bother him. Tyler knows the pain resident because I am at Mount Sinai where Tyler is doing his training. His friend is confused and asks if we just had a baby: Unfortunately, breast cancer and maternity patients are on the same floor in the Women’s Pavilion.
“No, my wife just had a mastectomy.” And I can hear Tyler’s voice drop.
The resident checks out my pump and tells me it has been blocked for hours—no pain meds for all that time. What the hell is wrong with my husband? It is the first signal that he should not give me any medical advice. He is a knee doctor, not a boob doctor and I am his wife, not his patient. Why is he so insensitive to my pain? He tries to make it up to me the next day by bringing me sushi for dinner. The sushi is so soft and does not hurt my chest when I chew it.
I spend the next day, my first day without my breast, in bed. Everything hurts. It hurts when I breathe in to smell a beautiful bouquet of red roses. It hurts when my friends sit on the corner of my bed to be near me. It hurts especially when I need to roll over to pee in my bedpan. When I take a sip of fresh-squeezed carrot juice to help get my energy level back up, I feel the wound beginning to ooze.
I get some good news: my lymph nodes are clean. I have never seen my parents so happy. They are jumping up and down and hugging the nurse and it looks like they are in a Megabucks Lotto commercial. Clean lymph nodes . . . the things we took for granted before this happened. The nurse reminds me that my right arm will be very prone to infection because I do not have lymph nodes anymore on that side. No blood drawn on that side, no blood pressure on that side, and no manicures. I know I will cheat. I can’t walk around with just my left hand polished. I am already going to be missing my right boob and I’ll need other things to match.
The next day I am determined to be glamorous for my visitors. I will not pee in the bedpan. It takes me about twenty minutes to get out of bed, still attached to my IV pole, without moving the drains and tugging on the stitches holding together my skin. I do manage to pee on the toilet but I can’t reach to wipe and need to call a nurse. I ask her to help me put on my white waffle cotton robe—it bulges slightly but fits over the quart-sized plastic drains that look like milk cartons. And I take out my jewelry bag. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take a shower after my surgery because my wound would have tape all around it and wouldn’t be
“I feel so much performance anxiety. Please, someone else speak.”
That makes everyone laugh and we begin to talk about everything except what we’re all thinking about: my wound. No one will talk about it.
A young doctor comes into the room to change my dressing and everyone leaves. I try to turn my neck as far away as I can when he starts to peel away the thin white layers of gauze that I feel are wet and blotched with fresh blood. I close my eyes and remember never being able to look when I got shots when I was little. I can’t look. Not yet. The doctor also unscrews the plastic drains that are sewn into my chest to catch my oozing wound fluid. He empties the fluid, screws back the drains, and checks my morphine pump. He scribbles something on my chart and quietly disappears into the bright white corridor outside my room. It would be strange to chitchat and I am way too tired to be nice or flirt.
That first night, my chest is burning and pounding because the anesthesia is wearing off. I tell Tyler how much it hurts and he tells me it’s normal and to keep pushing my morphine pump for more pain meds. I keep buzzing for the nurse, but she just keeps screaming at me over the intercom that a doctor is on his way. This is definitely not General Hospital . Finally, four hours later, the pain resident comes to visit me. Tyler didn’t want me to bother him. Tyler knows the pain resident because I am at Mount Sinai where Tyler is doing his training. His friend is confused and asks if we just had a baby: Unfortunately, breast cancer and maternity patients are on the same floor in the Women’s Pavilion.
“No, my wife just had a mastectomy.” And I can hear Tyler’s voice drop.
The resident checks out my pump and tells me it has been blocked for hours—no pain meds for all that time. What the hell is wrong with my husband? It is the first signal that he should not give me any medical advice. He is a knee doctor, not a boob doctor and I am his wife, not his patient. Why is he so insensitive to my pain? He tries to make it up to me the next day by bringing me sushi for dinner. The sushi is so soft and does not hurt my chest when I chew it.
I spend the next day, my first day without my breast, in bed. Everything hurts. It hurts when I breathe in to smell a beautiful bouquet of red roses. It hurts when my friends sit on the corner of my bed to be near me. It hurts especially when I need to roll over to pee in my bedpan. When I take a sip of fresh-squeezed carrot juice to help get my energy level back up, I feel the wound beginning to ooze.
I get some good news: my lymph nodes are clean. I have never seen my parents so happy. They are jumping up and down and hugging the nurse and it looks like they are in a Megabucks Lotto commercial. Clean lymph nodes . . . the things we took for granted before this happened. The nurse reminds me that my right arm will be very prone to infection because I do not have lymph nodes anymore on that side. No blood drawn on that side, no blood pressure on that side, and no manicures. I know I will cheat. I can’t walk around with just my left hand polished. I am already going to be missing my right boob and I’ll need other things to match.
The next day I am determined to be glamorous for my visitors. I will not pee in the bedpan. It takes me about twenty minutes to get out of bed, still attached to my IV pole, without moving the drains and tugging on the stitches holding together my skin. I do manage to pee on the toilet but I can’t reach to wipe and need to call a nurse. I ask her to help me put on my white waffle cotton robe—it bulges slightly but fits over the quart-sized plastic drains that look like milk cartons. And I take out my jewelry bag. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take a shower after my surgery because my wound would have tape all around it and wouldn’t be
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