Where to start....

I last posted pictures of my drains. At that time I was feeling great, well as good as could be expected following a major surgery. The next week I started going back to the gym, doing some minor chores around the house, and even got one of my drains out. I decided that since my dad is ill I should take the opportunity of some downtime and go visit him in Poplar Bluff.

Jaxon and I loaded up on Thursday Nov. 11th and headed to Poplar Bluff. The next day I woke up not feeling very good. I tried to push through the day but just seemed to be getting worse. I finally took my temp. around 5 p.m. and found I was running a 101 temp. Not good when you have just had surgery and have a tube hanging out of your body.

I ended up in Urgent Care with chills, nausea, fever and severe pain along my left side. The Dr. felt I needed to be admitted to the hospital but thought I was safe to get back to Springfield. By that time I couldn't stand up without having ringing in my ears and feeling faint. My friend Lisa saved to day and drove me back to Springfield. I stayed the night at my house but Saturday was not feeling any better so I headed to the Emergency Room.

I was finally seen by the surgeon on call who confirmed that I had an infection but did not feel I had an infection in my wound!?!?!?!?! He did feel that I needed to start IV antibiotics and admitted me into the hospital. After only 2 rounds of IV antibiotics the pain in my side finally started to decrease. My fever broke on Sunday and things began to slowly get better. My physician finally saw me on Monday morning and took a sample from my drain tube to test for infection (GO FIGURE!!). It came back on Tuesday as a staph infection. Yes that is correct, staph infection in the area of my wound. Fortunately by then I was feeling much better and was ready to go home. I was released with a heavy dose of oral antibiotics that I was to take for 10 days.

When I got home (Tues 16th) I realized I didn't feel as good as I thought. I still had some soreness, my arm movement had regressed secondary to not using it for 4 days and I was scared to death that some germ was going to invade my drain tube again.

No rest for the weary, I was at the hospital on Friday Nov 19th starting my first round of Herceptin. As mentioned before, this is an infused medicine but without the common side effects associated with chemotherapy. I did have the chills that night and was tired the next day but I am not sure if this was associated with the treatment or not. Will have to wait and see what happens the next time around (Dec. 10th).

The next week flew by with the Thanksgiving holiday. I did get my other drain out on Nov. 22nd. Today I returned to work. I had computer training all day which I think was a nice transition back to work. Tomorrow will be my first day to see patients.

I have had a really hard time with the thought of going back to work this week. I did not feel ready, it did not seem that I really had enough time off. This was supposed to be my time to heal from all the !@#$ I have been through all year. Some much deserved ME time. It just didn't seem possible that it was already time to go back to work. This morning I started reviewing the last month that I have had off and realized that in the last 27 days, I only spent 6 of them truly by myself. The light bulb went off, no wonder I felt like I had no ME time...... I really didn't. So I guess ME time wasn't meant to be and I have resolved it is time to get back to "normal"........Well I am not sure things will ever be normal but I will continue to move forward. Is there really any other choice!?!?!!