Early in the morning we arrived at the hospital and checked in. Soon a nurse came and took me and a group of patients upstairs. My parents were allowed with me. I changed into a hospital gown and some socks that they provided and a hair net. We waited in this room, along with other people in their own hospital beds, for an hour or more. The anesthesiologists, the surgical team, and Dr. Petroze all came to see me and ask various questions. They gave me some pill to calm me and it really worked. I don’t remember leaving that room but I remember laying in the operating room with many surgical instruments around me and many people in scrubs. They all chatted with me and were lightheaded and kind. I don’t remember going to sleep or waking up from that. My next memory is me talking to my fiancé and his father who had been waiting downstairs through it all. I don’t specifically remember feeling pain in that moment. They had a team of people move me from the bed I was in to another and it was so bumpy to where I first realized my pain. Including my surgery day, I stayed in the hospital for 5 days. The first 2 days I felt like my pain was never under control. I was always in pain and crying. I would recommend working on your core muscles before because having a strong core helped me tremendously with assisting the nurses with getting me out of bed and helping me stand up. The hard part was sitting up, nurses would have to place their hands behind me and pull me up before I could help myself. I was so relieved to not feel nausea from the anesthesia. However, we think one of my pain meds was disagreeing with me to the point where I could barely stand and vomited. I had to use a bedside commode these first days. It was not as awful as I suspected. Staying upright was difficult and I could only sit up in a chair for 15 minutes before I felt too sore and unable to breathe well. It was very important that I was releasing gas after surgery so the doctors often asked about that and I’m sure I passed gas and belched more in these days than in the rest of my life total. It’s only a few weeks later as I write, yet all of this is quite a hazy memory now. The pain is such a brief period of your life overall that it won’t effect you after you’ve gone through it The first time I looked down to see my chest I cried. I cried so much that I had to stop or else I wouldn’t have been able to breathe. It looked different than I had expected. I felt like my chest looked like an odd straight line was passing through it. It took me weeks to bear looking at it more. It looks more natural when looking at it in mirrors rather than looking down at it. I am now over a month out and my chest does not look like it did right after surgery. My breasts look natural now and continue to settle into something I am more content with each week. I was too quick to judge. I had one scary moment in the midst of all my recovery. I was in my hospital bed, surrounded by my people, crying from some pain after having just been out of bed. It hurt bad so I got worked up emotionally and suddenly I felt some jolt from inside of my chest. I immediately thought that my bar stabilizer had popped out of place and that my bar was shifting and that my stitches were ripping open. I screamed as it happened more, I looked down and the skin of my chest, just below my right armpit, was moving up and down as if something were trying to escape from within me. My mom rushed to get a doctor and my dad and fiancé gasped in horror because they had just seen the movement from under my hospital gown and knew what I was concerned over. The more excitable I got, the quicker the thing inside me pulsed. I just kept whining “please help me, I’m scared” as a team of nurses and doctors scrambled to figure out what was happening. They ordered a chest X-ray and a team came right to me room and performed it. Everything looked fine. Most of the doctors were entirely bewildered and had not seen the chest movements for themselves. Someone determined that it was a section of trapped air pockets from the surgery, they had seen something similar before with a different procedure. The air had been trying to find its way to the surface. It is the most bizarre thing I hope I will ever have to experience. It didn’t hurt exactly, I just seemed so terribly off and felt so startling that I assumed there were severe complications. The possibility of this is HIGHLY unlikely, but I wanted to document it so that if someone else happens to experience it that read this, they won’t be so so afraid like I was. When I was released to go home, the car ride made it hard for me to breathe because of the sitting upright. I definitely would recommend having lots of pillows and blankets for support (the hospital even let us have some of theirs). Getting out of the car was quite difficult and I needed assistance from someone else. Something I often complained about at the hospital was that my butt hurt from laying on it for so long and it caused me much discomfort. When I got home I noticed that I had bed sores in this area. They went away after a week or so. I was incredibly bloated post surgery, I seriously looked about 3-4 months pregnant. We were very concerned but continued a regimen of miralax and some other stool softener that they prescribed and it sorted out about 3 weeks after the surgery. We found out that I disrupted the bacterial balance in my armpits because I was not able to properly clean under my arms since I couldn’t lift them for awhile. I had to use special surgical soap to help cleanse them and get rid of an other-worldly odor. Showering is difficult at first but not impossible. I did end up needing a shower chair for the first couple of showers and needed assistance washing my hair because I could not raise my arms high enough. At my post op checkup they said all looks well. I quit one of the final prescribed drugs I’ve been taking and am weaning off the other. Now it will just be Advil and Tylenol as needed. I’m soo glad to be rid of taking pills all the time. I finally walk normal again. For the first few weeks I was hunched over and it took more energy. Now I can walk a mile outside in my neighborhood. I can shower without a chair and by myself. I can finally pull shirts over my head instead of needed button-ups only. I’ve been sleeping in a recliner since surgery and expect to be there for awhile. I could not sit up out of the chair myself for a month. During the daytime, I can sit in a chair with an ottoman to support my legs. This allows me to get up by rocking the chair and using my core muscles to stand up. I had all these things planned that I could do while recovering but until the past couple days I’ve had no motivation or energy to do any of them. It gets tiring requiring help for what used to be everyday tasks. It has certainly tested my patience and my pride. I have been ravenous since my procedure and consumed more food than before, though it could be that I’m stuck in the house all day bored. I’ve consumed an unreasonable amount of media in my down time to the point where I think I will be done for awhile. Overall, this process has not been as hard as I expected it to be in the aftermath. The days at the hospital were unpleasant but looking back it becomes difficult to remember, which I believe is for the best. Progress feels slow but it comes in bits each day. I don’t at all regret having it done. I have learned since surgery that you won’t really start to see improvements in symptoms like breathing until around 6 months. I will do my best to keep walking and practicing my breathing until then. I intend on coming out of this stronger than ever. I want to start jogging once I have the lungs to do so. Updates will come as I have things worth saying~
