My Mastectomy

 

2 years ago I had a mastectomy. Sounds simple really when I put it like that – like a routine operation I suppose. However, lets call a spade a spade, I had an amputation, I had my right breast amputated, that doesn’t sound quite so routine now does it?

 

I arrived at the day surgery (yes – DAY surgery!! – for an amputation?? It didn’t sound right to me at all). I had 2 breasts at 7am when I arrived at hospital, at 2pm my right breast was removed and I was home for 8pm! What a day!

I was terrified that morning, Dave waited with me in the waiting area to be admitted and then had to leave me – I was on my own – literally on my own and terrified. A nurse directed me to my bed for the day, my feet felt like blocks of lead as I walked to it, there were two other ladies already sat by the beds next to me – we were all sat in order of who would go down to theatre first, little did I know how these two women would help me that day.

A lovely lady called Sue was in bed 1, lovely Liz was in bed 2 and I was number 3.

 

I sat down on the chair next to my bed nervously looking around, exchanged hellos with the two ladies next to me, a nurse came to take our details and when she did so she pulled a blue curtain between each of us. As I sat behind the curtain, I could hear part of the conversations going on, Sue was in for a lumpectomy and it sounded like she had been here before, Liz was in for a left mastectomy.

After the nurse had taken my details, I was sitting behind my blue curtain when I could hear sobbing from the lady on the other side of the curtain, I started to cry too. I sat there thinking “should I see if she is ok? Will that make her more upset though?” I was really unsure what to do for the best, I was crying too so how much help could I be? While I was sitting there though the decision was taken out of my hands as a face appeared around the curtain, it was Liz, she said “Are you ok? I can’t sit there while I can hear you crying”.

 

She sat by me and we told each other what we were in for. We sat there just hugging each other and holding hands at which point the other lady Sue came around the curtain and we just sat together sobbing and reassuring each other.

We talked about how we couldn’t believe we were there, how we were just so fed up with crying, we all shared how we had spent so much time since our diagnosis and the days leading up to today just crying and crying.

We eventually pulled ourselves together and sat back down having a general chat, pretty soon myself and Liz were taken down to “nuclear medicine!” (how frightening does that sound!) to have a radioactive blue dye injected into the breast that was going to be removed, after this was complete we went back up to day surgery. 

 

Sue was called down to theatre just after 9am, when she came back she was very groggy but put her thumbs up and said she was fine. (A little while later she was sitting there applying some makeup and brushing her hair! She is a marvel)!

 

At 11am lovely Liz was approached by the theatre nurses who had come to take her down, she started sobbing, the nurses pulled the curtain again and I just remember saying to her through the curtain “we can do this Liz, we can do it” I remember feeling utter dread as the theatre nurses took her to theatre, firstly because I knew how scared and upset she was and secondly because I knew once she came back it would be my turn.

 

It was approaching 2pm, the time I had been warned I would be going down myself but Liz wasn’t back, where was she? Why had they not brought her back? Has something gone wrong? I saw the theatre nurses walking towards me with a clipboard, I started to cry, I looked over at Sue and said “Where is Liz? Why hasn’t she come back?”

 

The nurses pulled the curtain around me, they asked me to tell them why I was there, apparently they have to hear me say what I am there for to verify whats on their paperwork, I looked at them and started to cry again, I just didn’t want to say the words, I still couldn’t believe what was about to happen to me, it was like a nightmare, I said “I am having a mastectomy” they asked which breast, I said “my right”. Sue could hear me sobbing and asked the nurse if she could come into me, when she did she took my hand and said “you can do this Lisa, and I’m going to be here when you get back”.

 

I just remember saying “I’m not ready yet, please don’t take me yet” but it was time.

I walked down to the theatre holding tight to the nurse’s arm while still crying. All the nurses that I walked past were reassuring me, I kept asking where Liz was and they said she was fine and that she was in the recovery room which is where I would go after surgery until I woke up.

 

Another nurse held my hand as I went to sleep. I woke up at around 4.30pm and felt a tightness in my chest and some discomfort but no pain. A nurse said that it had been difficult to wake so it was nice to see my eyes open! They wheeled me

back in to day surgery and there were both Sue and Liz with reassuring smiles and a thumbs up!

 

We had done it, we had all bloody done it and I was just so relieved it was over.

I will NEVER forget these two amazing ladies – I would never have got through that day without them. Neither of them. We shared something that no one should ever have to.

 

I walked in to hospital that morning as a whole person but I was leaving with part of me missing, but as Liz and Sue both told me, I was leaving with all the best bits still there, the only part that had gone was the bit that would have killed me if it had stayed much longer, I hadn’t really thought of it like that. So to Liz and to Sue I want to say thank you, thank you for getting me through the second worst

day of my life, I will never forget that day and I will never forget them.

 

My scar now is a constant reminder that I had cancer but it’s also a reminder that I got through it and I am still here, some ladies are not so lucky. My wonky body is here to stay but I will learn to love it – eventually. My message for International Women’s Day is: check your boobs ladies, mine tried to kill me xxx

 

Lisa