So, do you want to know the best word in the world? Here it is: Benign. Yup. Here's another good one: fibro adenoma. To start at the beginning, I had a lump removed from my right breast last friday. They had to remove it because it was too big to biopsy. Think about that one for a minute. It's too BIG to stick a needle into. But it makes sense if you think about it, because one part could be benign while the rest is a raging inferno of nastiness. So I had it removed. Let me paint you a picture.
There I am in the little room in my cute little gown and socks with the little sticky stuff on the bottom. A guy comes in to draw blood. Does he start an IV at the same time to limit the amount of poking I will undergo? Of course not. And it hurt. So then a girl comes in whom I met at my first visit to the surgeon two weeks prior when this chickie was on her surgical rotation. Apparently now she's on her anesthesia rotation, and jumped at the chance to start my IV. The first thing she did was numb the skin--which I have learned is a very bad sign because it indicates that they don't know what they're doing. And I was right. She poked around for a while and then did something extremely painful and started to laugh. I looked over and she had blown the vein. There was a HUGE ridgey lump on my hand where my vein should be. She held gauze on it to stop the (external) bleeding, and proceded to laugh and show the other people in the room how funny that was. I don't need to tell you I was not pleased by this. It hurt so bad that I was starting to get a little woozy, and my mom turned to this girl and said, "how many IVs have you started in your life, 3?" She stopped laughing. The next guy didn't seem any more competent at the outset but he did get the needle in first try and it didn't bruise.
Then they took me in the operating room. This sucked so bad, I don't even have words to describe it. They put a blanket over my face and tied my arms down (which was good because I could feel them keep trying to move down and "help") and injected the local. They did give me some happy drugs at the beginning because I remember dozing off a few times. But then they wore off and I remember everything after that. I think I've watched way too many medical shows because I understood way more of what was happening than I wanted to. When the doctor finished and left the nurse to close they started bickering about the proper way to close, "I like to do it this way with a little wrinkle, but Dr. Neumeyer doesn't like that. She's never here when I close so I do it my way anyway." "I like her way of doing it, don't you think you should use an extra stitch there?" "no, it's good, I've done hundreds of these" and on and on and on. By the time I got back to my mom I was so ready to go home and get away from that place. I cried all through the surgery and didn't stop until my mom took me home.
But on the bright side, I am done with it, and they called today and said it was a totally benign fibro adenoma. I have a very orange/purple/green/red bruise where I can't show people, and a dark purple/green bruise covering the back of my hand. Yeah, it's really funny, isn't it.
You know, when you're preparing for this surgery, they tell you how easy it is because it's not into a muscle or organ, so the recovery is really easy. But I don't think the average person realizes how often they use that part of their body on a daily basis. Tearing off a paper towel from the roll, carrying more than two things, bumping into doors, folding laundry (if you can't figure that one out I'm not going to explain it to you), etc. I'm sure I for one, will not be taking those things for granted any more!
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