Recovery and scars - November 2021

 "My friend Linda is having a mastectomy

Her breast will no longer be next to me

Instead there's a void

Like when they removed her fibroid

As part of a previous hysterectomy."

    ~Matt Hunt

Kia ora! I love that poem above, written a couple of months ago by my friend, and I'm glad to have had such well-rhyming surgeries! I hope you are well and are not getting run over by the Christmas madness. We are not putting up a tree this year as I'm struggling with the reminders of this time last year, when our lives changed utterly with my breast cancer diagnosis. I'm concerned I will stop loving Christmas if I associate it too strongly with all this waves vaguely.

I am promising myself this will be a very short blog post as, a) who the heck has time to read a long episode in December, and b) I've not done much apart from recover from surgery. We will see how that pans out though... I do love to rant and rave a bit!

Craft

I have cut out a few patterns - I've printed some PDFs, stuck them together and traced them, and traced a few old patterns I had kicking about. I had to do all this very slowly as bending forward wasn't good for my abdominal wounds, but I've got quite a few projects to be getting on with.

Taking over about 50% of the cottage living space right now

In the first two weeks of recovery I wasn't able to stand up straight and sitting or standing made my back very sore, so I spent a lot of time lying in bed, learning to use Notion app and planning out my sewing projects in a kanban-style board. Yes, nerdy, I know.

I knew working in Tech would be good for SOMETHING

My wonderful old sewing machine had a stroke a while ago, leaving the needle permanently on the right side of the sewing bed. It was ok for a while but eventually drove me mad and I bought a new machine. I have some buyers remorse as it's so plasicky, I wish I'd bought a vintage machine instead, but I'm slowly getting used to the new machine.

Dear old beastie

The new kid on the block

I picked up an excellent solid wood sewing table on TradeMe but for various boring reasons haven't been able to set it up yet, which is driving me quietly bonkers. Hopefully this week. I think at the painfully slow rate I do anything these days I'll be sorted for sewing projects all year, and hopefully I don't size out of the things I've already cut the fabric for!

Season

We have moved from Shitsville to Spring 2, on the Realistic Wellington Calendar so have had some stunning days but an equal number of wet ones too. I don't really care, as I can't do any physical work at the moment anyway. I love this time of year with the long days and riots of green everywhere, but it's been very difficult not being able to do gardening and everything is getting away on me.

Not too long until the longest day, and I'm thinking a sunrise at the beach - perhaps with a small fire - will be the ticket. I can drive again, at least, so am able to get out and about just fine. The birds wake us up so early at this time of year but I can't be mad at them as they sing so beautifully.

The orphan ducks are flying now - I serendipitously took video of their very last waddle away from their breakfast a couple of weeks ago. Only the smaller one (Little Orphan) Annie comes to visit these days, the larger one Anne (of Green Gables) perhaps has died, or maybe they have parted ways. Not sure - I'll go and wander around the lake tomorrow and see if I can see them together. Update: two years later and they are both still regular visitors!

Health

I'm settling in to my new body appearance and the scars are doing pretty well. I had them strapped for the first 6 weeks as requested by the surgeon - this helps them heal flat instead of lumpy - and it seems to have done the trick. The most noticeable one will be from the Port-a-cath, but it'll fade over time. I have some ointment (god I love the word OINTMENT) to rub on and sesame oil is a key ingredient, so I feel very culinary or something at the moment. Maybe just hungry, now I think of it. I smell like I'm marinating.

Not my actual flesh

The belly scar is hip to hip and rather alarming now the strapping tape is off, but again, it'll fade. Happily I'm not a bikini model so we're all good. I have strange sensations on the belly - some properly numb areas, some strange and kind of distant-feeling areas, and I really feel it internally if I foolishly lift something too heavy. Like when I went shopping for hand-weights yesterday. Lol. Wasted trip.

I'm not going to get into details about my boob, suffice to say it's doing well and we are getting used to each other. It's quite odd still, but when I'm dressed it's impossible to tell anything is amiss - especially with the bait-and-switch of the port scar on my other boob! I am, for the most part, really happy with it and grateful it's healed so well.

The other type of Scar

November was a very chill month - lots of resting, lots of naps, lots of time on the deck. I had some lovely visitors, of both the human and bird kind, and from mid-November onwards I slooooowly eased my way back to work. 

Happily the pathology report from the mastectomy was clear, so there is no need to do radiotherapy, which I'm also very grateful for. Next step is hormone treatment - daily drugs for the next 5-10 years. I'll open that can of worms next episode.