Kiss the drains goodbye… the sweetness and the sorrow…

So there is a lot of shitty parts of surgery and one huge but necessary one is the drains. And lucky me i got 3! Yay!

Those that don't know what those are, well here we go...

Drains are tubes within the body that empty out into small containers. They are lightly stitched to your skin. Their purpose is to empty the fluid from your body after surgery. Kinda of like after getting a burn, your body creates the blister and that fluid builds up inside (and yes we know we aren't supposed to pop that blister for fear of infection). Well these are the extreme version of that. These drains help the area heal faster. And yes it's gross and you have to empty them but it's a necessary part of the healing process.

So for the past 2 weeks I have had tubes coming out from under my arms. Picture a T-Rex that mated with an Octopus but sadly only got the short 2 arms and 3 tentacles.

🦖 ➕🐙

You get the picture.

For a good week and a half dealing with the odd new shape of my body I was handling it. Pain meds kept things at bay but by day 10 my drain tentacles were started to get more painful. And no meds were helping.

Side note - with drains you need to empty them and measure the output - once they start to slow down, the doctors let you know when they can come out.

I went in on Friday 2/17 for post op checkup and was lucky enough to get one drain removed. Yay! And was told if I don't move my arms AT ALL for the weekend then I can get the others removed on Monday. Well that was reason enough for me !

My body must have known they needed out because the pain I was in was excruciating. I felt like my body was pushing the tubes out and the stitches were fighting back to keep them in. Awful! Lots of tears and no meds helped.... needless to say it was shitty weekend.

Monday came and my first call was to Dr. Griffith's office- went in at 11:30 and my new BFF Mary (she's the best) said let's get these out! I could have cried from happiness!

I'm not going to say there was no pain with the removal but the little pain I got was worth it. And the happy endorphins kicked in and I felt fantastic!

Everyone says it's so much better after the drains are out. And at THAT moment leaving the office I felt that. That endorphin high lasted for a good few hours (see pic 1 below).

AHHH THE SWEETNESS!

LATER came the SORROW....

As with anything, especially cancer, there are highs and lows. By removing the drains which was great- there are now spaces in my body that are empty. And now need to re-heal . So the pain right now is not super fun as my body readjusts without the drains. I still can't use my arms so it is making things a little more challenging (like writing this blog. Lol) . This was just the first Hurdle in this race to the end, but I'm down for the challenge with tears, laughter and a smile...

I have an oncologist appointment tomorrow to go over the next steps in the journey... The Chemo part.