And now for something completely different....

It's that time of year again. The time of year that makes the hearts of addicted.. I mean... um... dedicated crafters sing "cha, cha, cha!" For my confused friends out there, CHA is actually the Craft and Hobby Association trade show. It's where all the new items that will appear in stores over the following months will be sold to retailers. The show begins shortly in Anaheim.

And once again, for the confused who are wondering why a cancer-surviving ob/gyn even knows about this show, let alone is talking about this show on her blog (BTW, she has even been to said show in the past), I will explain. Papercrafting, especially scrapbooking, is my hobby. Somehow, over the years, it became more than a hobby. I've dabbled on the sidelines of the industry for almost 10 yrs with publications in books and magazines and even teaching classes at stores and conventions. I don't do too much of that these days, but I do still create. I am very fortunate to be on the design team for a small Utah based company, Scribble Scrabble, who will be at the show.

So, without further ado, I present a sneek peak at Evelyn's Collection, one of three new lines.

Update

As these entries now automatically post to Facebook, which seems to be taking over for blogging for many, including myself, I thought it was time for a small update.

Unfortunately, my sister has had a rather eventful recovery from her bilateral mastectomy. There have been issues with healing. Yesterday, her incisions opened down to the layer of the actual tissue expanders. She underwent an unexpected surgery and had them removed. Essentially, on some levels, this is like having yet another bilateral mastectomy. She already had 600 cc in those expanders. My implants are 650 cc, so she was already at a decent size. But, now she's back to step 0.

She's actually doing very well despite this setback. Reconstruction will now have to take a backseat to recovery. Recovery is a long road. I've read many a time that if you've spent a year in treatment/surgery, it takes another year for your life to return to normal... the new normal. We certainly know by now that the old normal is dead and buried.

Nursing Care for Bilateral Mastectomy/Tissue Expander Patients

I am incredibly annoyed that I feel the need to address this.

My sister called and gave me her report from the evening and this morning.

I do remember what it was like. However, like childbirth, we tend to put the worst parts back into the deep recesses of our minds.

I had forgotten what it's like to not sleep well because the PCA button needs to be pressed every so often for pain control. She reminded me.

I did remember how hard it is not to be able to do simple things for yourself. How you can't change the channel on the TV set or even turn it off unless someone leaves it very close by. You can't reach for the phone to answer it. It has to be right there. She still reminded me.

I had forgotten that even though someone delivers your breakfast on a tray that unless someone helps you get it set up and gets you up to eat, it doesn't matter that it was delivered to you. You can't eat until someone helps you. She reminded me.

I had forgotten what it is like to wait all morning for someone to help wash you up. Help may be an exaggeration. You need someone to wash you. There's little you can do yourself. I will be explicit and add that wiping yourself in the bathroom is one of the most difficult chores you have. Pretty hard to reach that area when you don't have use of your pectoral muscles. No one ever came to help my sister wash up this morning. Her dh had to. She reminded me.

So, the purpose of this entry is not for my handful of regular readers. This entry is for when some young or not so young med-surg or oncology nursing student enters something like "post-op care for bilateral mastectomy patients" into a search engine they will may find this entry and get a clue! Your patients in this situation can barely use their arms at all. Hands, yes. Arms, no. The best nursing care will address this. And I hope to address this with the nursing supervisor later this afternoon myself.

Surgery Day

Today is my sister's bilateral mastectomy (aka "double" mastectomy) and expander placement. I imagine she is out of the OR and in recovery by now. I will be heading over in a little while to see her in person.

Boy, does this stir up memories. It's been just about 2 years and 4 months since I was in the same hospital, with the same surgical team, having the same procedure (and a few more, but who's counting?!) My most vivid memories include waking up with such a strong sense of peace. 2+ years later, I still have that same peace with my decision to go ahead with removing both breasts and ovaries. I hope she has the same peace. I watched her go through the same turmoil in making the decision, not wanting to take any more time off from her life than necessary, not realizing at first that this might be key to continuing the *new* version of life.

The first few weeks after this surgery are tough. You can't do much for your self. I couldn't open the refrigerator, couldn't open a bottle of water and couldn't turn the water in the shower off and on by myself. Driving? It was a good month before I could drive and I admit it was not comfortable doing so at that point. Compounding it all was that I had some major blues and mood swings as I had my ovaries removed on the same day. Perhaps her recovery will be a tad bit easier without having that additional procedure.

Still, even having gone through this not too long ago, it's hard to know how to make it any easier for someone else, especially someone else who was raised to be fiercely independent. Mom was quite successful in that regard!

Just got word that she is in the recovery room.