The breast cancer patient's best friend is: DRUGS!!

I'm not one to peddle drugs, but I have to say that I had to have morphine for the pain. It was nice-the morphine, not the pain!!

Everyone finally got their act together-and on Thursday morning I had a visit from Mr.Tan; I had to sign consent forms, we discussed the surgery. I had to go down to nuclear medicine to have an injection which would show the lymph nodes. I was radioactive.

I had to have my computer and all valuables locked in the hotel safe, where they stayed until Saturday. And the porter came to bring me to the theatre at 2:15-I was shaking. Literally! I wanted to escape.

Short version: I woke up in recovery and the pain was excruciating. I want to say that I felt like I'd been hit in the chest by a double-decker bus-but that sounds so ordinary (and I don't do ordinary!). It was as if I'd been jumped on by a herd of stampeding rhinos (now that certainly is not ordinary!!). So you get the idea: there is pain, and there is "shoot me and put me out of my misery"pain. Mine was shoot me pain. Even then I was joking with the nurses about whether or not I still had both kidneys (I did. About the spleen...well...)

Anybody who tells you that there is no pain after a double mastectomy, or they "know how you feel" (never experiencing themselves), has to be masochistic. Or they have no nerve endings. Or they are bonkers. Or dead. The pain is worse than anything you could possibly imagine. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I had to have morphine.

Morphine is good. Trust me on this!! My blood pressure shot up so high that someone was assigned to take it every hour through the night-it finally started to drop towards normal at around 8am. Then someone asked why I hadn't slept all night-well, DUH!!! Could you, with someone constantly poking at you every hour?

The first three days were terrible. I stayed in bed most of the time. When the bruising started to come out, I noticed that my entire upper body was black and blue-mostly black. No wonder I was in so much pain!!

If you are really into pain, have a bilateral mastectomy. You're nuts.

I'm at six days post-op now, and I can finally lift my arms, so I wanted to let everyone know I am still alive. My face is an interesting shade of slate, I have a huge (and I do mean, huge) cut from armpit to armpit (I have been sliced and diced), I'm black and blue from armpits to waist and all around front and back, and very swollen; I'm wearing one of those lovely (!!) hospital gowns, someone put black anti-embolism stockings on me when I wasn't looking, and I'm wearing these ghastly yellow NHS booties. I just get sexier every day!!

Next Tuesday I will find out the results of the histology test-so I will know whether or not cancer went into the lymph nodes. Fingers crossed; if the test is clear, I won't need chemo or radiation, so at least I won't lose my hair.LOL bald and flat, that would be too much.

I'll be back. A nurse is here to plague me-and to feed me something that looks like someone else ate it first.