Healing & Creating Downeast

So, it has been about 6 months since I have had the brain power to set down some words. Let’s just say it has been a summer. Double mastectomy…check; 5 weeks recovering at my folks w/4 drains…check; return to Maine….check; 2 weeks later Emergency run from Maine to CT…check; surgery for infected seroma in right chest…check…2-3 days in hospital with mega antibiotics…check; MRSA diagnosis…check; wound vac for a month and continuing wound care…check; new pill for HER-2 negative results…check; back to both jobs…check; daily exhaustion…check; first infusion to keep my bones strong…check; friends stepping up to help…check!

Friends have been pretty easy to gain during my life. Some I’ve lost through my own errors, some I’ve lost through their errors, some I’ve lost through time. I think I was one of those kids in school who kind of fit into many groups…yet I often felt all alone. Who hasn’t been there though? I still have friends who I see as often as possible…friends who live too far away but I think of and laugh daily…friends I have lost and still occasionally feel the loss…and friends who are my tenacious defenders and warrior friends. I count my siblings in that last category. Although that is another story.

During this summer I realized that one of my friends whom I have known since elementary school (Cori) was still among the few who would and could step up when things got dire. She and I are a pair! We have strong views and many, many coincide…which is helpful. Her husband is always by her side if I need her and with the words, “go!” Among the many things she did this summer was to drive in the middle of the night in a rented black ragtop mustang from CT to Maine. This adventure was to help me, who had a 103 degree fever and was leaking from my chest, to get to the ER at Baystate on my surgery fellow’s last day. I had no other options and did NOT want to go to a local ER because they do not know me nor do I trust them to care for me in the same way as my team in Springfield.

Long story short….Cori got me there in style and grace. She also recently went with me to my first infusion just in case it would be a lot. So, big thank you to this sister/friend! I’ve had other helpers throughout this summer including my younger sister, my mom & dad, my big brother, old and renewed friends, my son and his wife, and beyond. Work friends who drove me down for my initial surgery/and home and who were beyond generous with donating almost 9 weeks of leave that allowed me to do all my initial trips, surgeries, healing, and resting! Such a blessing to not worry about a paycheck or rushing back to work. Thank you to all of the above and the surgeons, nurses, caretakers, maintenance folks, kitchen and laundry at the hospitals…fantastic people.

I also have to thank the people at my local health center in Maine who had to re-learn and learn how to do a wound vac change! They squeezed me into their schedules…whichever NP was available…3 times a week for about an hour to change my would vac and clean the wound. They were phenomenal! It took about a month before I was able to be established with a local wound care clinic…so my home team were amazing! I have gone from having an open pocket the size of a Carhart t-shirt pocket in my right chest…to a closed wound that is finally growing skin again. It has been just over 5 months since the second surgery and I have some healing to go, but this would have been a much harder summer without all of the people above!

So, I remain tired, in therapy, taking my meds, back to 2 jobs and building my side business back up, and hopeful that the next steps will be light.

Thank you to my friends…all those above are now friends even if they can’t ethically be…the next year will continue to be a year of reaching out to old friends (and new) and telling them how much they are loved.