As much as I would have liked to encamp on that river in Egypt indefinitely, the day of the surgery loomed near. At the consultation, I was given two antiseptic wipe packets in a white gift bag. I was to take a shower the night before and the morning of the surgery, and wipe my skin with these cloths to minimize germiness. Some gift. I didn’t read the instructions until right before my shower, I had to wash, then wait an hour for my skin to cool before I used the wipes. Not a big deal for the night before, but since I had to be at the hospital very early the next day and it was an hour away, I had to get up at 5 am to get that hour long cool down in. As I was cooling, the phone rang. Could I be there 30 minutes earlier yet than they had told me? Sure. So, I got 30 minutes of cooling in before the wipe down.

When I arrived, they gave me my gown, and though I tried my best to negotiate, I had to relinquish my underwear as well. And I put the gown on with the ties in the front. Weren’t they going to work on my boob? Why wouldn’t they want the ties in the front? But(t) no, back I went to put it on with the ties in the back. So, with the breeze gently wafting on my commando butt cheeks, I walked to the pre-op area. Pete was allowed to come back and wait with me. I wasn’t there long when a wheelchair arrived to whisk me down to mammography.

Maybe whisk is a tad generous. The chair was being driven by an elderly gentleman, who was kind, but perhaps would have benefitted more from the ride in the chair than I.

So, as mentioned in my last post, I had to have a needle inserted to “point” to the area that the surgeon was to take out. I fully expected a stereotactic table (The Machine) like the one I had for the biopsy. I wondered how I was to climb up on that without showing all the way to Charleston in my free-ballin’ state under that gown.

Well, it wasn’t The Machine. There was only a standard mammogram machine in the room. Three nice ladies first gave me a pair of pants (praise Odin!). I met the radiologist, who looked like he was twelve years old. He described the procedure. He said I was going to have a wire inserted, that had a hook on the end. I don’t consider myself squeamish, but I could have done without the mention of the hook. I asked if I could keep the wire afterward at least. No. Other than scars both physical and mental, I was to have no souvenir.

I was loaded awkwardly onto a gurney, laid on my side, and wheeled up to the mammogram machine, where Pancho was gathered and wrestled and heaped upon the plastic plate. Pancho and his constant mammogram companion, my armpit. One lady cranked down the top of the griddle, and the other lady always reached over and gave it one more crank. I can only assume the final cranker was a reincarnated agent of the Inquisition. It took several tries and three ladies to get all where it was supposed to be, and then there was the usual dicking around by the radiologist getting ready while I lay there with my boob in a vise.

He gave the usual “You’ll feel a pinch and burning” as he gave me the numbing shot. It didn’t hurt a great deal, and I told him he was better at it than the last place. Then he gave me two more. And called for another syringe for one more. I verbally retracted my statement. He stuck the wire deep down in, and once again I felt the prick deep in my chest, only this time knowing it was a hook.

This process took about thirty minutes. There was nothing to look at but the slightly pebbled off white surface of the machine, and part of a sign advising about how not to suffer an electric shock from the machine. I stared at the sign, trying to make words from the letters in the warnings. One of the words I made was hook.

They finally released the vise, and I got to sit up. Whew, so glad that was over, right? Nope. Now I got to stand and have about more mammograms on Pancho. Getting squeezed in the vise while there was a wire sticking out of my boob. A wire with a hook. More wresting and flopping, the calcifications are so deep in my chest cavity that I have to get super close to the machine. I have to turn my head in unnatural ways like I was having a photo portrait done in the seventies at Olan Mills. They kept scraping my collarbone with the top of the griddle as it came down. Up and down vise photo, side to side vise photo, 45 degree angle left photo, 45 degree angle right photo, one more just for funsies.

FINALLY, they were done. The ladies all bid me adieu, while for some reason I thanked them for brutalizing my boob. One of them wheeled me back upstairs to pre-op.

I had fretted a good deal in the week before my surgery about that needle that would be stuck in my boob. I kept picturing that syringe in the Uma Thurman photo. Pete kept assuring me the week before my surgery that the needle wasn’t going to be that big, and that he was sure the end would be taped down and not sticking up. That’s a debate that I wished I had lost.

The red marks are from where the vise scraped its way down my chest on its way to smash my pin-cushion boob.

I was scheduled for 10:50 for my surgery, which was about 45 minutes to wait. We waited. And waited. And waited. All the while I sat and felt my numbing shots wane away, with a hook in my boob. My neck was killing me, but I must admit the thought of the hook in my boob took my mind off of my neck. Also, I hadn’t eaten since 9:30 the night before. Anyone who knows me understands the hangry danger everyone who was near me was in.

Three hours and fifteen minutes later, the transport man came with the gurney to wheel me to my final destination, Boob Cut City. He and the nurses discovered my awesome pants, and made me take them off, the Philistines. The transport man told Pete to say his goodbyes, and P, knowing I would fall apart if he said something nice, said “See ya”, much to the consternation of the transport man, who shook his head and said something like “I’m not even going to touch that one”. Later, when I was laughing at this, P said he almost said “Bye LaTiesha”. (yeah, in case you didn’t know, it’s “Bye Felicia“) It’s a good thing he didn’t, because I would have laughed so hard I might have dislodged the hook in my boob.

They took me into a little curtained cove and I joked with the anesthesiologists. I don’t remember what I said, I was super nervous and it’s hard to focus with a hook in your boob. But they laughed. You want to keep the knock-out dude happy.

Next, the surgery!

 

Blog Reprobation Uncategorized witch's tit #breastcancer #mammoram #dcis #davidniven #witchstit #biopsy #surgery #radiology #breastsurgery #hospital