Part 7: A Gradual Recovery

The day after surgery, I woke up to burning pain. Percocet took the edge off, but didn’t fully vanquish it. At intervals I clamped an ice pack between my arm and breast, which helped for about 20 minutes at a time. I was also nauseated, which hadn’t happened after either prior surgery. I ordered in saltines and drank a lot of water.

2/15/22

Subject: Ow

Ow. Woke up with PAIN. Headache. And nausea. I don't remember my fibroid surgery being this bad.

In 2016, Dr. Stratton punched five small holes into my abdomen to carve out pounds of fibroids, and left my uterus mostly intact. I’d been warned by hysterectomy survivors that for weeks after surgery, I’d experience wrenching pain when climbing stairs. Instead, a few days after surgery I felt a small twinge negotiating three steps into a Starbucks, and after that I was mostly fine. I took little walks and then longer walks every day. I needed painkillers for two days and then just felt exhausted at random intervals. I thought core muscles and nerves would heal more painfully than fatty breast tissue.

I was miserably wrong. My breast pulsed and burned. I iced and medicated and lay in bed cursing and crying. But good news trickled in anyway.

2/16/22

Subject: Good news

Good pathology report. Clean margins (they got it all) and no evidence of metastasis in the lymph nodes. Radial scar and that other bit also nonmalignant. Pain still awful, but bearable with Percocet.

Gradually the burning died down. Almost a week after surgery, I took a little walk.

2/20/22

Subject: I took a walk!

Today I ventured out to the pharmacy. 4 blocks there, 4 blocks back. Consequently I'm exhausted and sore. This after waking up and taking Tylenol and aspirin instead of Percocet, and feeling mostly okay but tired. I am going to work from home next week; I'm just not ready to walk 7 minutes to or from the subway twice a day, and not comfortable lying down under my desk for a brief nap.

Ten days after surgery, I met with my surgeon for a follow-up feel-up.

2/24/22

Subject: Surgery follow-up

Today I got to second base with a tiny PA and a surgeon. Both female, so obviously I have options. Both were thrilled at how well I've been healing, but said I'm still pretty swollen. Apparently breast tissue is spongy and absorbent, so my left breast is bursting with lymph and resentment.

They took out the tumor, the radial scar, and something called an intraductal papilloma. I thought that meant “wart,” but apparently it’s just another kind of internal benign mass you can grow. Meanwhile, the right breast reports intermittent phantom pain, probably out of jealousy. Like me, it’s a bit of an attention whore.

I have lost one pound since surgery, I'm pretty sure that's because I spent most of last week sleeping and not because she scooped out a pound of breast flesh. A friend advised me to eat chicken and fish, because healing takes protein, so I’ve been ordering a lot of grilled salmon salads.

The surgeon said I need to meet with a radiation oncologist and a hematology oncologist. She thinks I'll have 3 weeks of daily radiation treatments, which is more than I wanted but less than I feared. She also said it was normal to be this exhausted and told me to rest more. I'm happy to, because I'm mad sore after riding the subway and bus to and from the surgeon.

Hopefully the next few days will heal me up enough to go back to the office daily, because I've been working from home all week and while the commute is awesome, everything in my program goes haywire without my firm hand on the wheel. It's been great seeing my coworkers and clients via Zoom, but there's nothing like in person. However, if I need to work a day at home here and there, I will.

One of my co-workers is religious; he and his wife sponsored a day of learning at his son’s yeshiva on the day I had surgery. I suppose it would be blasphemous, to say nothing of rude, not to recover.

Thanks to everyone for your support. I'm ordering another grilled salmon salad for dinner, since the 90-pound PA made a point of telling me to avoid processed foods. Pretty sure she’s a vegan.

Next day came another momentous milestone: a day without pain, or at least with minimal pain. Or bearable pain. Yeah, that’s the right word. Bearable.

2/25/22

Subject: No more painkillers

I'm almost 2 weeks out from breast cancer surgery, and I'm finally off all painkillers. Today I didn't need to take aspirin and Tylenol after getting up. Also, I took out 2 weeks' accumulation of garbage. I feel ridiculously accomplished. Of course, the accumulation of cardboard and paper, if recycled into book stock, would fill an entire edition of every Harry Potter book, but one thing at a time, right?

I got a lot of great feedback and support from my friends and family. Words of encouragement. Expressions of love. Laughing emoticons in response to my hilarious emails. But there was one word I didn’t want to hear: “warrior.”

If I were a warrior, wouldn’t I get to shoot or stab somebody? Instead I’m the one impaled by ginormous biopsy needles, injected with lidocaine and dye that could strip the paint off furniture, fileted with scalpels, squished and smashed between panes of glass, wired up like a homemade bomb. I’m not fighting. I’m allowing myself to be mutilated, stuck, and squished. I’m as passive as I’ve ever been. I go to appointments, sit or lie down, and let people hurt me. (Cat, who took me home from surgery, is a retired lung cancer social worker. She says that the people who feel the need to call themselves warriors are usually the ones that don’t survive. So it’s not just me who finds the term problematic.)

2/27/22

Subject: don’t call me a “warrior”

I’m not a cancer warrior. I’m not “fighting” cancer. You don’t fight cancer; you endure it. Endure pain, a million needle jabs, an exorbitant financial drain, enervation and fatigue. The endless anxious tedium of reception areas and procedure rooms, waiting for your name to be called, a door to open, someone to hurt you again.

Many if not most cancer patients endure worse than I do: chemotherapy, repeated surgeries, adjustment to life without a significant piece of you. A friend of mine lost half her stomach and pancreas. By comparison, I’m rich in flesh. My breasts have always been decorative, not functional. I could lose some or all of them and still walk, work, think, eat, urinate and defecate. Again I’m in the peculiar position of being called “lucky” that my disease has only pained and inconvenienced me, greatly, without killing or hideously disfiguring me.

I have the happiest breast surgeon, the smallest tumor, the most negative sentinel nodes... I might get hit by a bus, but I’m not going to die of this cancer. That doesn’t make me a warrior. That doesn’t make me lucky.

My friend Alexis, who’s survived several bouts with cancer and many more surgeries than I have—she’s the one who lost half her stomach and pancreas a week and a half before my surgery—noticed a tinge of ire in my humor:

You sound good. But I expect you're also really annoyed and frustrated. I really hope it all calms down soon and you feel better soon.

Of course, Alexis also told me that a partial mastectomy or “lumpectomy” was no big deal; she’s had three. Never three in one day in one breast, though. But she was right, and I let her know:

Thanks. Yeah, my Freudian slip is showing.

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