Here It Comes (Pt 3)

Of all the things I wish I had known about a bilateral mastectomy before I had mine, the inability to sleep ranks pretty high.

As I laid in bed last night trying to go to sleep, I couldn’t help but think about all the nights my eyes simply refused to close, my mind has refused to shut off and my body has refused to relax. Try as I might, sleep has eluded me more often than not and left me feeling weary, frazzled and unable to contend with the day the way I want to.

Insomnia has been an unwelcome, frequent friend these past few months.

When I had my mastectomy, we did an immediate reconstruction and lift. Spacers were placed inside a pocket created by my plastic surgeon so that when my stitches were healed, he could expand my skin and ready my breast for implants. The lift was performed so that we could spare my nipples. In order to do so, my surgeon used what is referred to as a “key hole” incision. I had one long incision on the underside of my breasts, a second incision up the center of my breasts to the nipples and then a third cut around each nipple and areola. Basically, each breast was fileted open, breast tissue removed, tissue from the nipples and areola removed, spacers placed, breast skin sewn back together and nipples (with areolas) grafted back on. When finished, I had a half circle of stitches under each breast, a line of stitches halfway up the center of each breast and around each nipple. Along with the stitches sewn into the nipples, a dressing called Xeroform was sewn over each one creating a moist healing environment needed for the graft to take and heal properly. 

I wore the yellow “buttercream flowers” (that’s how we referred to the xeroform) for a week. When I returned to the doctor for my first post op appointment, the stitches holding the dressing on were cut and the xeroform removed. Underneath, my nipples and areolas were black as coal and looked like dead tissue. My surgeon and nurses were positive though and said the scabbing would fall off and eventually the color would return to as normal a shade as possible. Until we were sure the grafts would take, I had to continue to cover them with xeroform and then cover that with a gauze dressing, taped across my skin. I was able to discontinue the use of the xeroform around the first of May and switched to Aquafor instead, continuing to cover with gauze. I didn’t think my skin would ever recover from that tape y’all. The total time we covered them was about a month and a half. 2 weeks before my spacers were expanded for the first time, my stitches were removed from the graft (all other stitches dissolved on their own) and the color was pretty much normal.

It may be that the stress of worrying about the stitches and the graft, subconsciously worrying about turning the wrong way or moving the wrong way and possibly dislodging or pulling something, that left me unable to sleep. Maybe it was just the fact that my body had undergone a major traumatic event and had to readjust. Whatever reason it was, I hated it.

The first month I “slept” in an electric recliner. Either a recliner or sleeping with a wedge under you in your bed is actually recommended by surgeons because you are supposed to sleep elevated and not flat on your back due to the fresh incisions and the drains. We chose to find a power recliner because I wasn’t sure about having the strength to raise myself out of bed each time I had to get up. I slept on and off throughout the day and night in that recliner and it became my “home’. I know what that leads you to think…that if I were sleeping throughout the day, that’s the obvious reason I wasn’t sleeping through the night. Except, that isn’t the case. I found pretty early on that if I felt sleepy, I needed to sleep. The discomfort and pain (however minor the pain was for me, it was still present enough to keep me from relaxing completely) wouldn’t fully allow my body to release. Our schedule was strict on following the pain regiment like we were supposed to and staying ahead of the meds wearing off. I had enough narcotics for about that first week and after that, I found I was able to use a combination of Ibuprofen and muscle relaxers to stay ahead of most of my discomfort.

I honestly thought that the sleeping would get better once I moved to my bed. I wasn’t about to go buy a wedge to sleep on because, to be perfectly honest, they looked like a torture device. Instead, starting around the beginning of the 2 month mark, I started sleeping in the bed propped on pillows. I used so many at first that my husband liked to joke about my fort building each night when we went to bed. Yes, I really used that many and I believe that at one time, I was actually up to 6 pillows. I had piled softness all the way around my body, ensuring I was not only elevated but also that if I were to turn at some point during the night, I wouldn’t be able to go far.

I was wrong about sleep coming easier once in my bed though. No matter how many pillows I had.

There were nights when I would watch videos on Facebook with the sound off. Other nights I would just lay and stare at the ceiling thinking about all that I had gone through and thanking God that I was on this side of cancer. On those nights, the nights when I continued to lay in bed, I would try my hardest to go back to sleep and on a few occasions, I actually succeeded. Then there were the nights that I couldn’t even stand laying in the bed so I would go into the living room and sit in the recliner and watch tv or read. Every night though, I would snack. I had snacks everywhere. I snacked to have something to do. I snacked to comfort myself. I snacked because my refusal to eat during the day had caught up to me. I snacked. And snacked. And snacked.

And now here I am, almost 3 months later fat and still unable to sleep some nights but thankfully able to rest most nights.

I have quit the snacking though.

These days, I’ve slimmed my fort down to two pillows when in my own bed. I have been other places, either in hotels or other people’s homes where my fort has grown and sleep has once again eluded me. Those nights take me back to the first month or two when I stayed exhausted and wished for dreams. Mostly though, It’s just me, Chuck, my two pillows, our 2 dogs at the foot of the bed and sweet, sweet sleep.

My friend insomnia still stops by from time to time but at least nowadays she keeps her visits to a minimum.

I guess the most important thing I want to you take away from this one is to just hang in there. I know it’s hard not being able to rest. I know how frustrating it is to live every day exhausted and no one around you really understandning why you are so sleepy (becasue your “I cant sleep” and their “I can’t sleep” are two TOTALLY different things). I know what it is like to sit, with tears streaming down your face, begging God to just allow you to close your eyes and drift. BUT. It will fade. You will find rest. Your body will return to some kind of normalcy. I’m three months in and still haven’t returned to complete normal and maybe I never will but there are moments where I can forget and to me, that’s perfection. Maybe I’ll learn a new normal to live by. I don’t know becasue I can’t see the furture. What I do know though, is that what you feel right now will get better. Just don’t give up.

Trauma doesn’t slide through your life without leaving it’s mark and I can’t promise that mark won’t cause pain because it most certainly will.

I can priomise, if you allow it, that that trauma is going to make you stronger than you ever thought yourself capable of being.

They say you have two choices in life, you can either laugh about it or cry about it. I say you have a third. Go on and cry about it. Get all the ugliness out of your system. Scream it out if you have to. Then throw that head back and laugh, friend becasue you are still here. You are a warrior. You will fight another day.

Count it all for joy, Sis.

I know I do.

Till next time-Amy