Surgery

Woohoo, I am now cancer free!! Yesterday I had my surgery. Depending on how many times they have to keep going in and cutting out cancer cells until they reach healthy skin the surgery can take from 2-4 hours. I was scheduled to start at 9am and actually finished by 12:30pm. My parents came into town to help this week since I need to take it easy and am not supposed to lift anything. So while Jeff was at work my mom stayed home with the kids and my dad went with me to the surgery. Everything went well. Here's the rundown of the procedure:

- 9:05am get to the doctor's (ok, so I was a little late, what's new)
- Checked me in and took me to the back to get started. My dad was able to come back and meet the doc, then he had to go out to the front waiting room.
- I put the lovely shower cap and gown on
- Even though I am a wuss when it comes to needles I opted to not take the Valium to help me stay calm because taking it would mess with my breastmilk. Plus I have had so much time to mentally prepare for this that I wasn't too nervous and I just wanted to get it over with.
- They cover me up, put my hand on a metal plate to ground me for when they cauterize where they cut, prep the area, then the nurse starts numbing my nose. They leave the needle in there for about 10 minutes and SLOWLY inject the numbing stuff. It was a brutally long time, but the nurse was awesome so it wasn't that bad. I felt like I had a big block on my face when she was done.
- After ensuring that I'm all numbed up they bring the doctor in.
- He starts cutting away. I have my eyes closed, of course, and it feels like he is being a little rough and there's a weird noise. Sounded and felt way different then what I thought would be happening, but whatever.
- After he cuts it out they send the skin to the lab to map it out and make sure they have gotten all of the cancerous cells and that they see the start of healthy ones. They only take exactly what they need to preserve as much of my healthy skin as possible since it's on my nose.
- While it is being analyzed they cauterize the incision, put a temporary bandage on and send me to a patient waiting area. Normally it takes an hour or more to do all the lab work so I get to lay in a recliner and they tell me to just relax and take a nap. This was at 10:11am.
- At 10:33am they come back and tell me there is a little more that they need to get. I was expecting to get a full nap in but they totally finished early. I'm not complaining. I was hoping that they would get it all the first round, but it wasn't that bad so I guess one more time was ok.
- They take me back, renumb a little, and the doc takes the little piece out.
- 10:50am I'm back in the waiting area laying in my recliner. It was very peaceful because I could actually relax since I didn't have any kids to worry about :)
- 11:20am they come and tell me that I am cancer free!!
- 11:44am they tell me to go to the bathroom because it's time to stitch me up, which takes a bit of time.
- Prep me again and we decide to take the skin graft from behind my right ear.
- The doc chooses the area behind my ear that's the right size to cover my nose and begins to numb that area. Holy cow, he is not as gentle or delicate as the nurse. It hurt like a mother. The nurse took her time and did it slowly, but the doc apparently was in a hurry.
- He cuts out the graft then begins to prep it to be attached to my nose.
- Attaches it to my nose and sews it on with dissolving stitches. Then they attach over the graft with regular stitches gauze that is full of medicine.
- He stitches up the area behind my ear. The doc's part is done and he leaves. He was a nice guy and overall did a great job.
- Nurses bandage me up and go over the care instructions for the next week. I notice that the pile of bandages on my nose keeps getting bigger and bigger. Getting a little worried. They tell me I'm not to touch the bandage on my nose or get it wet or anything until I come back next week to get it removed. The bandage on my neck I can take off and start cleaning twice a day starting on Wednesday and I slather on vaseline and put clean bandages on until next week.
- 12:29pm they're all done, so I get up and look in the mirror. My face is covered in bandages that I can't remove for a week. Great.

I felt pretty good throughout the procedure, but when I got home it hits me and I feel absolutely drained. Thank goodness my parents were there so that I could just rest and take it easy. Then I start to hurt. The nurses said that my neck would actually hurt more, and boy were they right. I wasn't able to get my pain meds until later that evening so by then I was totally emotional, in pain and not feeling well. The pain meds don't really take the pain away, but they calm me down and take the edge off. I can't lean over or pick anything up. I need to sleep with my head elevated for a few days. Oh, and I can't see my feet because of the pile of bandages on my face. I can't wash my face for a week (I LOVE washing my face by the way, so this will be hard) I can only wipe down where there isn't a bandage, and I can't wash my hair. We are going to have to figure out some way to do that though or else I will go crazy. When I open my mouth to eat it pulls on the bandage on my nose which hurts my nose, and when I chew and move the area behind my ear it hurts that incision too. I can't wear makeup on my nose for a month, which makes it difficult to wear any make-up at all because the make-up I use is mineral powder that you dust on so it kinda flies all over. My nose will be discolored for a few months, and in three months they will basically sand down the scar on my nose. So fun. But at least I am cancer free, right? Lesson to be learned from all of this: WEAR SUNSCREEN ALL THE TIME!!

Gorgeous. Are you jealous? But seriously, could the nurse really not make this more presentable seeing as how I will have be like this for a whole week?

As you can probably guess I will not be hanging out in public much.

Speaking of hanging out in public, last Friday a member of the Bishopric came to our house to give us both callings. But that wasn't all. He asked us to speak this Sunday, 2/28. Of all days to be asked to speak. He handed us a typed up letter with our names on it asking us to speak on that date and what the topic was and tips on how to present the topic. We have never been asked to speak in such an official manner. I told him that I would have just had surgery and would be all bandaged up, couldn't wear make up and my hair wouldn't have been washed for days. He looked at me like 'so what'. With that response and with the official typed up paper I felt bad saying no, so we said yes. My parents were supposed to fly out that morning too, but they changed their flight so that they could watch the kids while we spoke. But I had also thought that my bandage would be flesh colored and not so big. Ha! So when I first saw myself in the mirror after the surgery my first thought was that there was no way I was going to get up in front of a crowd of people to speak. So we left a message last night saying that we would be happy to speak on any other Sunday. Do you think that's bad that we are baling out? We haven't heard back yet. What's funny is that on Sunday that Bishopric member's wife came up to me and said that she gave her husband a bad time for asking us to speak since we have twin babies and that she would watch them while we spoke. But I said my parents would be there so they could watch the kids. Then when he told her about my surgery she gave him an even worse time. So I don't feel too bad for canceling. I will gladly do it some other time. In the meantime all I want to do is rest and stay inside.