a little update

It's all happening now.

That's right.

I have lower lashes. They are tiny but they are BLACK and they are mine. The entire lower lid is covered. :)

It's been a rough few days, in all honesty. The week after surgery was more difficult than I expected (I'm sure I've said this already). I quickly recovered to a point in the hospital but did not move far past that until sometime yesterday. Not being able to do even basic things for myself is so very difficult.

Monday was my first post-op check, meaning my first time out of the house. I could not wait but didn't really have the energy either. A nurse checked my drains. Yup, still draining. For those that don't know, I have 4 JP drains coming out of my body, 2 on each side. These are tubes (like IV tubing) that connect to clear plastic bulbs, a little bigger than a tennis ball.. We empty them at least twice a day. One of these had barely drained at all after the surgery. She fixed that! Patria and I were both thoroughly impressed at just how much came out from that one in the office (more than 100 cc for my fellow drain gals). It continue to make up for the last time and kept filling throughout the day and is still draining mega amounts compared to the others. I'm a little sad bc the drains don't come out until they essentially stop draining. After the appointment, Patria stopped and picked up bagels for us. Such a short, simple event was so exhausting. I came home and napped for 2 or 3 hours.

It's looking unlikely that any drains will be pulled on Thursday. I definitely cannot drive until they are gone. Not that I'm ready for that, but once they are out, it will be much sooner until I can drive. I think that once I can start doing some of the chauffeuring of Miss Rachel myself, she will be better. She's doing well, but I can see the stress. She and I both need to reclaim a sense of normalcy, possibly even more so than with what we had going on here during chemo. To do that, I need to be doing at least some of the driving.

Another friend, Annette, will be taking me to my next post-op appointment on Thursday. She was my caretaker yesterday. She picked me up in the morning and brought me to her house for the day. Her couch was actually easier to get up from than mine. :) It's an Italian household, quite similar to a traditional Jewish home... so, yes, I ate more yesterday than I had in days.

I do feel a definite change now mentally too. More like myself. A little weepy at times though. It's hard to separate what is what bc I'm also undergoing MAJOR hormonal changes. This is not the same as normal menopause, something you gradually spiral into. This was a sudden, sharp drop. I went under anesthesia with functional ovaries on Sept 12 and 30 minutes later, they were gone forever. I do still have a miniscule amount of estrogen thanks to the bits our body can pull out from fat. In a woman my age, that amounts to maybe a few grains of sand instead of an entire beach. It's the same as any post-menopausal woman has. I lose even that next month when I start the rest of my breast ca treatment with an aromatase inhibitor (AI). I'll take one everyday for at least the next 5 yrs. It's one of the pluses of joining the ranks of post-menopausal women. :P Studies have shown these drugs to be more effective than tamoxifen in keeping those nasty cancer cells from making a comeback. The AIs cannot and should not be used in pre-menopausal women... at least not for this purpose. Infertility docs prescribe them to induce OVULATION! Horrors! LOL!