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…That
was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across
my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in
June of 2013.
Nope, STILL not
it!
So, my wife is
sitting across from me, watching golf, a bit over six days after surgery.
The tubes are
still in – four of them for drainage of the surgical field. Two will come out later this week, the other two until the drainage
drops to near zero. They are there to clear fluid out that the body floods the
incision area with. Normally it’s absorbed back into the bloodstream, but with
major surgery, it overwhelms the system. The drains smooth things out and leave
less behind for infection.
NOT that we don’t
have to be concerned about infection.
And pain.
And maintenance.
At any rate. My
wife was actually up enough yesterday to spend time with her sister and
sister-in-law in a southern suburb of Minneapolis while my daughter and foster
daughter went on a shopping mission to the Mall of America.
She was only able
to stay for a couple of hours, but enjoyed herself immensely.
THAT of course,
was in the middle of a power outage. The largest in Minnesota history...yahoo.
You can bet that THAT induced a bit of neo-panic! That passed, but we’re left
with a heat wave now. Several people will be stopping in to see my wife over
the next few days and my daughter and I have easily taken on the role of
grocery-shoppers and cooks; housekeeping and laundering; lawn-mowing and
weeding; dog and cat feeding and grooming – all jobs my wife does with
unstinting love.
All-in-all
however, we’re surprised that she’s bounced back as quickly as she has. It’s
not even a week yet – she went under Monday morning…she JUST said, “I can’t
believe I had the surgery!”…even as I typed this. Plus, the surgeon thought she
was SO concave chested that she gave her a small saline injection into the
expanders – so she came back with boobs!
Even our daughter
commented, “You’re showing a little cleavage there, Mom!”
So – stage two…or
is it three or four?...seems to have reached some kind of completion. She is
recovering and looking forward to the next step: saline into the expanders in
order to stretch the skin in preparation for the implants themselves in
November or December.
I’ll keep you
posted and if you have any questions or comments, shoot them my way and I’ll
try and answer them!
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