ODAAT

As most of you know, I've been in the hospitalized all week. After days of agony at home, I went to the plastic surgeon's office with an infection Monday and was immediately admitted to Jefferson. They gave me IV antibiotics, aspirated and tested the fluid in that they collected from the area. It was a small colony of staph. I really thought that I 'd be done after that, but foreign objects in your body don't respond to antibiotics. I was determined to get it removed completely and be flat chested, but my surgeon wanted to make a decision based on what he saw when he went in there. On Thursday in the operating room they removed the tissue expander, washed out the area, and put another one in.

Boom! Right back to step one on the one side. The pain is back, the drain, the bleeding, the restrictions. I've been stuck so many times, and pumped with strong antibiotics that my veins have given out. They pushed the Iv's out, and then I'd have the IV flushed. Saline would flow into my arm, and it hurt like hell. This happened four times. I've been poked multiple times a day for blood tests. Every night at 12:30pm they check my blood to see if y blood type has changed. It's the law. What a dumb law. My blood type has always been O negative. It will never change because even if I had a blood transfusion, it can only be O negative.

I've run the gamut of emotions. I can only imagine that it's normal to feel this way going through this, but I'm certain some people wished I was acting stronger. Normally I'm not one to cry or blubbering cry or wailing, tearing, sobbing cry. I'm never been too needy. I've always been independent. Maybe they're scared too. They want the old Tegan back. The strong, confident, artistic, hard working, independent, feminist, Tegan back.

I loved being alone throughout my life. I've traveled in and out of the country alone, went to movies and dinners by myself. Had long road trips alone. Stayed in hotels by myself. I had fun doing all of thee things completely alone. I lived alone. Yet I never felt alone nor I cared. At least that I remembered. I was empowered. I was wild and crazy and lived life without any fear.

Things are different now. For once in my life I'm scared. Now I wish someone could hold my hand or be close to me throughout the entire process. I'm still here, but I need to be coddled and nurtured and hugged. That's why my kids are great. My son is so cuddly, and so is my daughter even though cuddling to her is pulling out my hair or grabbing my nose. When she sees me, she shakes her limbs, grunts, smiles, and flaps her arms. Now that's raw emotion. I could be asking too much fro the people around me. Maybe I should be stronger. Today I woke up feeling retty good because I get to go home. Possibly to a destroyed version of my house, but i get to go home.

Back to business. I'll have to be on an aggressive antibiotic for a month, which is very strong and scary. I have to avoid many foods containing tyramine and even antidepressants, which is scary because I was going to go on one because of my occaisional fragile mental state. Then once I get cleared by infectious disease Dr's, I have to go on another antibiotic for months down the road.

This has already effected the chemo start date of August 6, and will push it out another month. It's almost as if we're at step 1 again. Well actually step 3, because step 1 was diagnosis. Step 2 was staging via testing and sentinel node biopsy. Step 3 was the bilateral mastectomy. Step 4 would be chemo. I wish it were more black and white like that, and maybe once I can look back on all of this, the steps will be more distinguishable. Such is life though.

Everyone says take things "One Day at a Time". Well sometimes I have to break that up into hours or minutes. And sometimes it breaks it down to the seconds. Right now I'm counting downs the minutes until I can go home.