Paging Dr. Weitz, Paging Dr. Weitz

Can you believe it’s been over a month since I had my surgery? I feel like I’ve been on this wild roller coaster, up, down, around tight curves pulling g-forces only to find myself and my body completely upside down. And through it all, my constant has been my best friend and all-around great husband, Rainer – remember it rhymes with finer – or at least that’s what he told me when we first met.


You need to know something about Rainer to understand what I’m talking about. He’s seen me at my very best, the day when we first met and couldn’t stop smiling at each other under an umbrella in the middle of a San Francisco November rain, at our wedding rehearsal when I was carrying a makeshift bouquet of daisies leaning down from the second floor and over the stair case banister watching him as he took his place in front of our dear friend (and did you know a universal minister via the internet) Trigby or on the day our first child was born as she was laid across my chest – her little head wobbling as she listened to her new parents coo and say I love you to her and each other. He’s also seen me at my worse, when I was so sick from chemo, radiation, and cancer begging him please to just let me go, from anger when I was forced from the job I loved for reasons that only attorneys will eventually do battle about, at the sadness, depression brought on from the daughter we grew to love only to find out that we couldn’t help her nor did she really want our love or help. His coping mechanism throughout my journey, battles with cancer has been plausible denial. If you don’t talk about maybe it will go away. It makes him uncomfortable, but yet he’s been there fighting with me all along. Together I know that we will just keep fighting each battle together until the very end and perhaps a little bit more. Complacency isn’t in neither his nor my vocabulary. If you have cancer – you fight. Remember, dying is easy – it’s living that’s hard.

So after being laid out on a cold operating table at 7 am in the morning, surviving a brutal 10 ½ hour surgery – where the bad was scoop out and the shiny new boob was put into place. My first words to my husband was……okay, how do they look and it’s 10 pm you need to get on that boat. Can’t tell that I love him can you. I’ll try to say that it was the anesthesia that made me so bossy. Yah, that’s the ticket. It was the anesthesia that was making me a bossy broad. He kissed me on the head, said don’t worry about the children, I love you, they look great and see you Saturday morning. Off he trotted and there I stayed in the hospital for your basic different forms of torture.

Torture you say…….Didn’t you know that hospitals are known for the sadistic methods of torture techniques. First up, sleep deprivation. Yes, you’ve been given drugs to ease the pain and knock you out, but I ask you why they won’t let you sleep. First up, your night nurse comes in at the top of the hour – she’s actually your nightingale for she brings gifts – drugs. Thank god, and give them to me now. She fixes your sheets, closes the window even though you’d prefer it to be open. Next, the nurse’s assistant – he shows up at the 15 and 45 of the hour. He wraps a torture device around your arm and proceeds to take your blood pressure. The device is a machine that diabolically pumps air into the cuff around your arm. More air, more air, more air. You begin to think you arm is going to fall off. Then suddenly it stops, loud ticking is heard. Hmmmm, are you sure you’re not dead. I don’t think so. Well your blood pressure is 75 over 39. He calls the nurse, she comes in. Thinking that he’s totally inept, she rewraps my arm and trys again. Pretty much the same results, my arm has fallen off my body and lays helpless on the floor and I’m dead. She says try the leg, it’s a little better. But she says to me, are you sure you’re not dead. She picks up the phone and dials the doctor on call. Muffled voices, no she’s not dead…….okay. Next thing I know I’ve got tubes up my nose and an oxygen tank next to my bed. Finally it’s the physical theraphist turn. She shows up on the half hour. Okay, you need to get out of bed and start walking. Huh, didn’t I just have surgery. I know, I know but we need to get you moving. I.V. pole acting as my crutch, pee bag pinned to my robe, she walks me down the hall and back. Throughout this hour after hour of the same nonsense, I was fortunate, I only had to endure 36 hours of the sleep deprivation. I pity those heart patients who are in for a week. That alone would give me a heart attack.

Next form of torture, catheters. I think the nurses who shove those things up inside you really don’t like their jobs. Now I understand the use of them during surgery, I mean who wants to have stinky urine splattering all around your operating room. But when you’ve been forced to get up and around, tell your nurse to get rid of it. My catheter kept falling out and instead of letting me go to the bathroom this particular nurse would just make me use a bedpan – not pretty, change my sheets and re-insert the stupid thing. Ouch. Finally after 3 sheet changes my nightingale aka night nurse decided to leave it out. What a relief, although it was pretty comical to go to the toilet. My I.V. pole was my best friend. It was the crutch that got me to the toilet; it was the hand that helped me down and up.

Anyway, let’s get to the more important stuff when my superman husband saved my life. I unfortunately had several complications from the surgery, staph infections, racing heart, and the big one….blood clots. Due to the 10 hours on the table, my legs developed some pretty big blood clots. So they decided to put me on lovonoc for the next 5 days to start the curing process. I had been released and had come back to the hospital due to the pains in my legs – the blood clots. Lovonoc can only be given my injection. So rather than having me stay at the hospital for treatment, my doctors sent me home with syringes galore, my own needle disposal box and Dr. Weitz. Rainer had to give me a shot every 12 hours for five days. Believe it or not, he got pretty good at giving the shots. Now, I’m on cumin din for the next 6 months. I guess the worst part of this is the stupid blood tests I have to have every week. It’s too bad Dr. Weitz couldn’t give me all my shots. They don’t hurt when he does it, plus I get a sweet little kiss afterwards.

Oh, now for the most excellent piece of surgery that Dr. Weitz performed. I had come home with 3 drain tubes. They cut stuff out, but our stupid lymph nodes keep making fluid for those parts no longer there. It takes awhile for the body to shut the faucets off. So I think it was the third night I was home. I woke up in the middle of the night and the bed was wet underneath my back. I got up and turned the light on. There on my bed was a large pool of blood on my bed. And as I turned toward the mirror in my bathroom to figure out what was going on, I was surprised to see blood gushing out of my side. I noticed that my heart was pounding loudly in my throat and the blood was gushing out of my body in the exact same tempo. I woke Rainer up and he went to work. It turned out that one of my drain tubes had stopped working and had scrapped on some internal organ. He packed off the whole in my side with (get this) a feminine napkin. Then I called my surgeon, she got on the phone with Rainer. He handed the phone back to me and started going around the house to gather supplies. She was going to have him do a little bit of surgery. (Well, it was going to take me over 3 hrs to get to Seattle between ferry ride, etc and this needed to be done now). Rainer came back with Alcohol, needles, some of my silk thread, scissors, and gloves. They talked a few more minutes – it was decide to forgo the gloves as these were my toilet gloves. Just what I need another infection. He went into the bathroom, scrubbed himself and his instruments up. Meanwhile, I’m talking to my surgeon getting more hysterical by the minute. She’s working her mojo calming me down. With me holding the phone to Rainer’s ear, he starts his procedure. Snip, snip – I feel nothing – I guess I was in shock. He slowly pulls the drain tube out of my back, at one point he asks my doctor, how long is this thing – 18 inches she says. Okay, tube out. Now with a needle and thread he stitches me up. More like put needle in pull thread through, tie knot. He does this a couple of times more. He smears the wound with neo sporin, dresses it with large pieces of gauze and then packs it off with another feminine napkin. My doctor calls it a field dressing, I call it a big “owy”.

Isn’t he amazing. I love the big oaf who snores loudly in the bed next to me. What’s happening now, more chemo, both chemo lite and chemo medium, plus perhaps some slight radiation. I think because they caught this tumor in its infancy. We were lucky.

But I still stay up into the wee, dark hours wondering…….when will we not be so lucky.

Surgery - Round 2 - Ding.......

My body has been tattooed, marked with black and red dye. It looks like a side of beef – rump roast here – breast there. I’ve had my blood drawn – viciously by a Pakistani nurse – even now my arm is dripping blood. I’ve been photographed, pumped full of drugs, eaten the last proverbial meal – only clear liquids until 6 a.m. And I guess I’m ready to go. (Of course, I’m really hoping that I don’t really go – if you get my drift)


Round 2 begins promptly at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. Much longer surgery tomorrow, I don’t even get out to recovery until sometime around 4 p.m. Rainer gets to pace the waiting room – armed with his Zune, Blackberry and computer. Kids are accounted for. Dogs will be peeing and pooping on the floor of my house. I lose a couple of pounds of yucky flesh; they move some of my back to my front…..and ta-da…..smaller breast on one side, new breast on the other side. And I’m a bright and shiny new.

But I guess the question is…..am I ready to go, am I ready to be bright and shiny new. I still morn for my old breast. You know I was firmly attached to it. But cut, cut, cut and it was gone. I’ve been walking around lopsided for nearly two years. I think it’s time to balance out.

Am I scared? You bet your last dollar I’m scared. I still have all these yucky cancer cells swimming around in my body. I wonder will the chemo continue to keep it at bay or will it now infect my new shiny appendage. When they open me up, will it be like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and I’ll have tons of cancer pods growing in me ready to pop out. (Yes, I know I’ve been watching too many horror movies). I was looking around my yard today. It was bright. The sun and haze were fighting amongst each other to see who would win. I think the haze won as it was a bright warm gray spring day. I admired the pretty little baby buds covering the trees. I wonder will I open my eyes tomorrow night……will I see the leaves blossom to green, sparkle to orange and red, and fade away….all yet to be reborn next season.

Que sera, sera……oh lord – Don’t start spouting Doris Day songs. I tell myself…..I’ll be fine, it’s okay. Hopefully, I’ll still be the champ after Round 2.



p.s. Unfortunately, I get the pleasure of a several day stay at Chez Hospital. I invite all my friends to either post their thoughts here on my blog or better yet…..send me your best jokes. You know a smile is good ju ju, but laughter is great medicine.