–and other potholes in Guyana

“WELL, this is a lovely addition to the family!” I remarked, as I tugged my surgical drain everywhere I went as I walked around my house. It had been close to a week after my lumpectomy, and I was at home doing the lay in bed, post-surgery recovery, don’t- move-too-much or everything-hurts routine. This had certainly cleared up any jokes I had made prior about ‘meh side ah hut meh’.
Indeed, it was not a funny sight to behold the tubes that had been inserted into my healing cut, as well as some areas around my right upper back.
A closed-suction drain is used to remove fluids that build up in areas of the body after surgery, or when an infection is present.
Although there is more than one brand of closed-suction drains, this drain is often called a Jackson Pratt, or JP drain. Drains inserted after surgery do not result in faster wound healing, but are necessary to drain fluids such as blood and other matter that may accumulate after surgery.
Before being discharged, I was shown by the nurses and doctor how to care for my drainage tubes (these were to remain for at least a week, or until drainage of fluids had stopped/decreased significantly).
Blood and other ‘icky looking’ fluids would drain through the tubes into an air-compressed container,. from where I would then uncompress the container and release fluids into a container for disposal.
“Yeah! Of course I can do this… by myself!” I insisted to my mom after the first two days of her doing it for me.
I later found out whilst attempting to clean my drain for the first time on my own that this required more mental strength than physical dexterity.
It didn’t take me one minute to start feeling as though I wanted to pass out. I was fine with looking at the blood when other people emptied the drain, but lack of mental preparation made me physically freak out, and start to have a mini panic attack in the bathroom.
I made it back to my bedroom; threw myself, very carefully, of course, on the bed, and yelled to my mom that I was dying. Eventually, I got the drainage bit sorted out and did it myself after that day; but it did surprise me the way the mind works. I could stare at my cut and missing flesh and not feel squeamish; but seeing the tubes was an entirely different experience.

JUST THE BEGINNING
This was just the beginning of my don’t-freak-out, post-surgery training. It came to pass that I accidentally pulled one of my ‘invisible’ stitches out, resulting in a one-inch gap in my healing wound.
Thankfully, it didn’t require more stitches; just better care until it fully healed.
My worst fear about being in pain was never realised throughout this entire process. The area operated on was numb from anaesthesia for more than two weeks, I believe. I never experienced pain. Sure, I was sore around the areas that I could feel, but nothing debilitating or unbearable. Whatever the good drugs were, I had gotten them. And they worked! Sleeping was a bit uncomfortable, as I would normally sleep on my stomach or my right side. But I couldn’t do either. This was actually the only issue that affected me; but I got accustomed to it. So accustomed, indeed, that I now prefer to sleep on my back.
Use of my right arm was restricted, since they had cut into it to remove the affected lymph nodes. After less than a month of simple arm exercises, I regained full usage of my arm.
Prior to all my medical debauchery, I had been employed by the State in a very demanding job, and had oftentimes wished I could just stay home and lay in bed all day for a week.
Well! Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it! And I did. Knowing that you are able to move around, and choosing to laze around instead is quite different from being told that you should not.
Never had I wanted to leave my room and bed so badly as I did in that seemingly unending week. I had more time than I needed to dwell upon my much anticipated biopsy results, and what it would really reveal.
At this point, even after hearing the doctor’s premature diagnosis in the hospital, my belief that I was cancer-free still trumped what he had said to me.
“There was absolutely no way I had cancer! I would know!” I thought. “I would definitely be feeling sick, wouldn’t I?”

LUCKY TO BE ALIVE
“You did a great job, Doc,” I reasoned daily with myself. “But you’re wrong about this.’ I had a lot of time for personal reflections, and I did have a few light-bulb moments that certainly enlightened me to the fact that I was lucky to even be alive. Not that I’d expected to be dead! But after going through surgery and all this unfamiliar medical stuff, I had a new found appreciation for life, and for the human body especially.
We do not know what we have until we have been threatened with its removal, or worse yet, our removal. I cannot stress enough the wonderful support of my family; the three main people in my life that have loved and cared for me, unconditionally, and continue to do so, even when I have made it difficult to do so.
Friends are the family that you choose; and I have also been blessed to have strong, caring and positive people placed in my life. My friends visited often, usually filling my room up with all the things I shouldn’t be eating unless I was an aspiring diabetic.
But Mom eventually wizened up and started to run damage control; the Hershey’s cookies and cream never made it up the stairs.
It is good to have the foundation pulled from under one’s feet at times, so that we may distinguish between rocks and sand, often times who is which may surprise you. In accepting myself and body after the changes I had gone through, I also started to accept people more for who they were, than for who I wanted or expected them to be. I have since found that I have been more pleasantly surprised than I have been disappointed.
I applied the same theory to people as I did to my medical situation: I could not change what already was, but I could change the way I reacted to situations and people; and I have since employed that thinking in everything that I currently do.
In a way, the surgery experience prepared me mentally for the upcoming biopsy results that would, in the blink of an eye, change my entire life and its outlook forever.
To be continued next week.