Post Mastectomy: Day 3

Today was an exhausting day, on so many levels. I don't think I have it in me to write a coherent entry; there are too many different emotions going on in my head, and I. am. tired.

• I woke up this morning around 5 AM and took a hydrocodone, then went back to sleep. When I got up around 7:30, I felt pretty good. Good enough to partake in the excitement of a pig (yes, a pig) following my husband home after he walked my daughter to school, and good enough to pick a few things out of my garden while defending it against aforementioned pig. (We live in the downtown of a reasonably-sized city, so this is not an everyday occurrence.)
• I dragged myself upstairs and washed my hair and washed up, without actually taking a shower.
• I had an appointment with Dr. L at 10:30. Nothing remarkable. She thought everything looked good and said she was still waiting for the final pathology report. She also explained that the ridge running across my chest is the drain from the mastectomy, which made me realize that most of the pain and discomfort I'm feeling is from the drain. Gross.
• I had an appointment with Dr. T at 2:30, and we didn't see him until around 3:30. I don't have the energy to recount all of it, but basically he said that my nipple looked really unhappy, and that if we wanted to try to save it, it needed time to recover from the mastectomy. If we proceed with the surgery next week, it will almost certainly die. He explained that when doing the flap transplant, he would cut in the same place Dr. L had used for both lumpectomies and the mastectomy, but that he would need to extend it approximately an inch across my breast. (It blows my mind that Dr. L sucked out my entire boob through one small incision.) This is necessary because he needs to get all the way up to my third rib for the blood supply. However, when he does this, it will cut off approximately 40% of the remaining blood supply to my nipple. He said that in a larger person, he could probably get away with just getting to the fourth rib, but since I'm smaller, I have smaller blood vessels, and he needs to go farther up. And, 'When I make the incision, it will probably be the last thing your nipple ever sees.'
• Sigh
• He assured me that he would clear out his schedule for me to do the surgery ASAP once we had determined if my nipple was going to make it or not but that we could not proceed with the surgery on Tuesday and realistically hope to save it. 
• I thought for about ten seconds before telling him I wanted to do the surgery on Tuesday anyway. Nipple be damned. I can't wait any longer. 
• Sigh
• He did say he would do his best to save it, but that it wasn't likely. However, he would inject something called SPY, which would let him monitor blood flow to the nipple as well as turn my pee green. ('So don't be scared.')
• There's also, of course, the possibility that the flap transplant won't even work, in which case, after all of this, I will end up with an implant anyway. (Won't it just be a fitting end to this if I wake up with a silicone implant and no nipple?)
• Plus, despite my best efforts to gain weight, he did re-express concern over my lack of abdominal fat. 
• Sigh
• Good thing I'm pretty much too tired to get worked up about all of this. 
• The last thing he said to me before leaving was that he would see me next week, then added, 'Chili cheese dogs! Eat a lot of them between now and then.'

I arrived home feeling tired and anxious and wondering why I am doing all of this, and if it is worth it or not. After dinner, I collapsed into my recliner, and pulled my laptop over to write this. I plugged my phone in to charge and noticed that I had missed a call from a phone number I didn't recognize. I checked my voice mail, and it was Dr. L. She must have been calling from her personal cell and she must have been at home, because there was a dog barking in the background. I guess it was a call that merited being made from a personal cell phone at home, before a long weekend, because she was calling to tell me that the pathology report was back and all the cancer is gone. I know I should feel elation, and maybe I will eventually, but I'm too tired. Too tired to feel happy, too tired to feel sad. Simply too tired to feel.