Okay – so the day before the big surgery you are supposed to have a pre-surgery appointment. They take your blood, do a chest x-ray, overall see what kind of condition you are in so they can prepare for you in the operating room. I was fortunate to be able to do most of that while I was at the hospital for my MRI. They recognized the distance I lived from the hospital and the need to try to reduce and combine as many trips as possible – I would be making this trip enough, I didn’t need to add any extra miles to my car when at all avoidable.
During this lead up to surgery you are hyper aware, overly sensitive, and if anything like me you deal with stress (when not dealing by it with inappropriate off-colored jokes and sarcasm) with anger and frustration. I had my pre-surgery call scheduled for 8AM. No call, my husband telling me to be patient, they’ll call. 830AM still nothing, getting pissed. 9AM, I call and leave a message – I have surgery tomorrow people! I can honestly say I was starting to lose confidence in my caregivers here. I call again, ask for the nurse supervisor, this is ridiculous. She runs down to the pre-surgery and finds someone. They didn’t have me on the schedule, are you freaking kidding me? I’m not rescheduling surgery, I need this to happen now. Oh, they had me down for surgery tomorrow, but somehow never got me on the schedule for the pre-appointment. They would call me at 4PM if that would work. Well it would have to, wouldn’t it? I don’t even know what time my surgery was for the next day. Did I need to come down a night early? Could I eat? Well they’ll tell you that in your pre-surgery appointment. Ya – but you just forgot my appointment!!!
So St. Joseph hospital in Lewiston, ID has a nice place called the Carondelet house that cancer patients (and probably any patient to the hospital) could stay at for free. I called to see if we could get in for the night before my surgery, anticipating that I would have to be at the hospital early, and knowing it was an outpatient procedure. I didn’t want my husband getting up at 4AM, sitting around all day and then driving home at 5PM after a very long day. They got us a room and we headed to Lewiston the afternoon before.
I sat in the parking lot of the hospital to do my pre-appointment call. I suppose I could’ve gone in and just done it face to face but knew I had my serious resting bitch face on thanks to them “forgetting” me that morning for my scheduled appointment, and my high level of anxiety for what was to come. They explained that I would need to be there at 7AM to check in. Not to eat or drink anything after midnight. To bathe tonight and tomorrow with anti-bacterial soap. Wear comfortable, loose fitting clothes to go home in. The questions they ask are the standard questions I felt like I had already given a dozen times. What medication are you on (nothing), over the counter (nothing), herbal supplements (nope), allergies (sulfa), previous surgeries (nada), any conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, and the list goes on for 50 different items all the while I’m rattling off “no, no, no”. Wow – you’re very healthy, ya, other than the fact I have cancer.
So Brent and I go out for a nice dinner (all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster, big treat coming from a town with no fast food and only 3 restaurant choices), a movie and do a little shopping. Although I’m paranoid about spending money now. The hospital called to make sure I was prepared to pay my co-pay the morning of my surgery, $175. I expected that and was fine, they then go on to tell me that the final bill (for just this surgery, not the treatments, other appointments, follow-ups, etc) would be about $5000! Are you effing kidding me? And I have “good” insurance.
Warning! Rant ahead. This is what is wrong with America today. This is why we need universal health care. I have good insurance and a good job and yet I am looking at maxing out my out of pocket catastrophic not only this year, but I would luck out for next year too since I was starting surgery in November and treatments and possible future surgeries would continue into 2018. So just my out of pocket catastrophic was going to cost me $11,000. That doesn’t include pharmacy, mileage, meals, co-pays, different bras, etc. I now understand the stories you hear about someone having to decide between doing treatment or feeding their family. My husband told me not to worry, we would make it work, but I don’t have $11K just sitting around. How do people deal with the stress of the diagnosis and the stress of the cost? And further rant, I am the middle class. Solidly in it, which means I make too much to qualify for any type of assistance and don’t make enough for this not to be life impacting. And thank you congress for passing a tax reform bill that removes the medical deduction, the year I need it and now that is gone. Eff me! End of Rant!
So next morning I show up at 7AM, wearing sweat pants and my glasses rather than contacts. I have a book, fuzzy socks, and my hubby with for moral support. I get checked in, hand over the $175 and head off to outpatient. They bring me to my room which in this case is shared with a young girl, likely under the age of 6. I now feel bad for her, not me. She’s too young to be at the hospital for surgery. Heck, I’m old. You expect to see the likes of me here. The nurse comes in and attempts to give you an IV. For me since the lumpectomy was happening on my right side, they were going in on the left. My veins are nicer on the right and pop, the left, not so much. A second nurse comes in and he succeeds in getting an IV into my hand. I am then wheeled off to radiology so they can do an ultrasound, locate that lump again and insert a guide wire for the surgeon to follow in.
Radiology:
So this process isn’t bad. Very similar to getting a mammogram or the biopsy. They give a little shot of lidocaine, insert the guide wire using the ultrasound and I’m done. Granted in my brain I am now programmed to give myself the “cha-ching” sound every time I meet a new specialist. They then wheel me next door to radiation.
Radiation:
Here the gal is going to inject me with radioactive dye so that the surgeon can either see or hear my lymph nodes that are directly associated with that breast during surgery. Now, unlike the wire, this hurts like a mo’ fo’. Seriously, they can’t numb you up better for this. Take a needle, jamb it in to your nipple, and slowly release a dye that burns. All I can think is why the hell do people get their nipples pierced! Even speaking with my aunt who had the double mastectomy, this was one of the most painful processes. They then wheel you down the hall to X-Ray (cha-ching), so they can see if the dye is showing up in the right places (it goddamn better be cuz I’m not doing that again!).
X-Ray:
This is somewhat similar to the MRI but without the pain of laying on your chest on a hard metal bar (thankfully as the ribs under my left breast still hurt!). 40 minutes later of lying still and having pictures taken I am ready to go back to my outpatient surgery room. They can see my lymph nodes, the dye is working (hallelujah).
Surgery:
So now I am just hanging out waiting for my surgery that was supposed to start 2 hours ago to actually happen. It is after twelve O’clock and I haven’t eaten or drank anything since about 8PM the night before. No water, no coffee, no nothing. The anesthesiologist comes in (cha-ching) to get my history, same 50 questions I have already answered. But he’s from MN (Roseville), owns land in WI (Lacrosse) and we chat about the homeland, the upcoming Wisconsin deer opener, life in the midwest. I feel good about being put to sleep by him. And that is what he tells me is going to happen. They give me something in my room to relax me and to settle my stomach (from what I’m not sure since it is empty). The doctor has already given Brent a few prescriptions for me to go home with for pain and constipation. Their ready for me now and I’m rolled in to surgery. In case you are like me and have never had surgery before, the rooms are cold. Fortunately they put warm blankets on you. They put little inflatable cuffs on your legs to keep blood circulating, they even put my blood pressure cuff on my leg. Put my arms out and off to sleep I went.
Recovery Room:
I woke up with a very dry throat and a sore underarm. Supposedly they had been talking to me?? I mean they have to know by now that no one coming out of surgery will remember anything. But they had attempted to put in my cath-a-port (or chemoport) and were unsuccessful due to my “weird anatomy”. It’s okay, they have referred me up to vascular surgery and they would get it in no problem (cha-ching). But they got the lump, the margin around the tumor, and 3 lymph nodes – preliminary look was good, all seemed clean. But it was off to the pathologist. 10% of the time it could come back differently. I was betting on the 10% (remember my new way of dealing, go negative so you aren’t disappointed later).
They give me some jello to eat, a few saltines, some ice chips and a hydrocodone. I am done and free to go home. It is about 4:30PM at night. I walk out (that myth you have to take a wheelchair out of the hospital shot all to hell). Brent packed me up in the truck and we went home.
Leave a Reply