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.