From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Somewhere during
the amateur auto mechanic era, you ran across the ultimate irritation: the
thing that only happens sometimes. The engine only overheats…sometimes. The
brakes seem to grind like two sandstone bricks. The oil light flickers when
slow down to a certain speed. The engine smokes a little when you turn the
steering wheel hard…
They would drive
you not only crazy, but to distraction. Driving down the highway, intentionally
as close to the barrier wall as you can, window rolled down so you can listen
for “that weird noise”…as you drift out of the lane and on to the shoulder!
I thought those
days were over until a couple weekends ago.
My wife and I
were watching TV and the remote slid to the floor. We’d get it later. Then our
daughter called, my wife reached to get the remote to pause the DVD; chest
against the arm of the couch...and gasped, sitting up, answering the phone, and
chatting with our daughter. When she hung up, she gasped, “It feels like a
knife between my ribs!”
She laid back
for a while, but we eventually headed to the ER of our local hospital, waiting
until someone could come and tell us…pretty much nothing. “Might have torn some
muscle tissue beneath the implant.” Pause. “But we can’t see anything with an X-ray,
so we’ll give you some pain relievers and call it a night. See your regular
doctor if you have more pain.”
OK. Helpful, but
not overly helpful.
My wife had
commented then and over the next few days that it seemed like something under
the implant was “hitching”. I watched the following video, in particular for
us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KcXt3dJI_w
While there’s
nothing to “hitch” on the muscle, it certainly seems possible that some of the
stitching might have torn. I know that the actual stitches are long healed; but
despite scar formation, it would seem to me that the edges would be weaker than
the original, uncut tissue. I’m not a surgeon, but it seems POSSIBLE.
I DID find some
comments on muscle tearing, pain, and bruising under the implant last night,
but I lost them when my “history” cleared overnight. I seem to recall that
using a CT and/or ultrasound might be able to detect problems, but I can’t find
the reference. I’ll keep looking and get back to you. For now, the pain seems
to be lessening – but she still feels the “hitch”. She’ll be checking with her
oncologist in March, so maybe we can find out something then…
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