I have to be in the hospital at 10AM. Not eating beforehand was easy as my stomach was a knot. Not drinking water since 8AM was a tougher challenge, especially since I get so thirsty with every hot flash. My older sister and Owen will come with me to the hospital in the morning. After reaching the right check in desk we are led into a tiny room to go through all the details of my visit. I have been warned that I will have to state what’s happening to me this visit approximately eight times.

Time to go to my room and wait for surgery. I have my own room, with which I am very happy. It has a bed, a little desk, a couch and a relatively large bathroom. Not too bad at all. I change into a hospital shirt and settle in. The surgery itself is scheduled for about 11, so I shouldn’t need to wait too long. I get some paracetamol and wait for my turn.

It takes a bit longer than expected but eventually two people show up to ride my bed to the surgery prep room. Owen and my sister can come with me till we have to go through some big doors. I was prepared for this whole morning to be emotional, especially the riding away from them part. But I even surprised myself by being fairly calm. Just a little nervous if anything. No teary farewell as I rolled away. Just laying in bed looking around and trying to see what was happening around me.

I used to ride horses, and when saddling up you would normally “park” your horse at a pole. I kind of felt like I was was a horse and was being led to my spot, next to others. Everyone in their own beds, a little curtain next to them so you couldn’t see their faces. Everyone did get asked to explain in their own words why they were there. The person on my left was getting a bypass. The person on my right had to get his appendix removed. I had to get my left breast removed (the nurses had put a big arrow on it to make sure they would remove the correct one). It seemed simple, this was surgery central and everyone was going through something rough.

When I started on chemotherapy I was told that I had some great veins, easy to put an IV in. Unfortunately chemotherapy isn’t nice to your veins, and they had to size down the needle since I now had kids veins. The IV had to be on my right side, which was the tougher side. The first two attempts failed (resulting into bruises that would stay for 3 weeks), but the third time’s a charm.

The anesthesist that would be with me during the surgery came to my bed then and first addressed my worries regarding my vocal cords. She told me that they had two ways of keeping me breathing through my surgery, one was indeed via intubation where the tube passes the vocal cords. There was, however, also a second method with a device that stopped right before the vocal cords, removing the risk of damaging them. They would start using that method but there was still a chance they had to switch to intubation if it didn’t work properly. I was so relieved, even though I knew the chance of permanent damage was small, it was still a weight off my shoulders.

She would also be administering the jab in my back. A quick simple jab I thought. It wasn’t until she produced two massive syringes that I knew I had thought wrong. This turned out to be a three person job. One nurse stood in front of me holding my shoulders as I sat on the side of the bed. The other two stood at my back. Using an ultrasound the right nerve was located after which a hollow needle was put in. One of the nurses kept the needle in the right location, constantly monitoring it with the ultra sound. The other nurse slowly put the fluid through while counting down. I am not sure if I can describe it as pain, it was an odd feeling of intense discomfort. Of course I had to get a hot flash during that moment as well, to make things just a little bit worse. I remember that the nurse who was counting down had the most calm and soothing voice, while the nurse in front of me had a firm hold on my shoulders. And then I was done. Ready for surgery, ready for losing my breast. The surgery before me ran a bit late apparently so I had to wait a bit longer, and I noticed my breast go numb from the anesthetics.

It was time then. Off I went to operating room 2. I got rolled in on my bed and had to go from the bed onto the surgery table myself. I then got covered with a preheated blanket (the room was actually quite chilly). I had met the surgeon before, but he did look different in his scrubs and with the little blue hat on. There were about 5 to 6 people in the room all patiently waiting for me to lay down and be passed out. My arms were spread out beside me on special holders and once again I was asked why I was there. Everyone had to hear that I was having my breast removed by choice. And then it was time, I remember being told that they would put me under and I was looking at the lights, and within seconds they became blurry and I was gone.

I woke up because I was thirsty, so incredibly thirsty. Blurry eyed I managed to get the attention of a nurse and asked for some water. She told me I had to eat a popsicle first. I remember thinking it strange but I ate that as fast as humanly possible and asked for water the moment I finished it. I ended up getting two cups which I drained instantly. In my thirst I had forgotten for a moment that I would be missing a boob at this moment. When I checked it I saw a nice white bandage and it looked really neat. There was no drain in it despite expecting one and I didn’t feel any pain at all. I was feeling pretty good actually.

The nurse told me that I was out of surgery for 18 minutes. I think she expected me to fall asleep again but I was wide awake. After I had been looking around for a while and making it clear that I wasn’t about to fall asleep again I was picked up and wheeled back to my room. At this point the thirst had been replaced by a healthy appetite.

When I got out of surgery my doctor had called my younger sister who was staying at my appartement that day. She was the one to inform my family and friends of how everything went. The surgeon told her the surgery had gone well and I would be sleeping for approximately 2 hours. Because of this they were not expecting me to be in my room as fast as I was, so when I messaged them that I was hungry it was quite a surprise. Luckily they were already on their way and fairly close by and were bringing snacks.

I’ve only had to cry twice during the entire process, once when my mom came in to visit me in the hospital (seeing her tear up made me tear up as well). And the other time was when Owen walked into the hospital room right after surgery. I was so happy and thankful to see him in that moment.

The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. Owen and my sister sat and chatted with me. My older sister came back as well and later in the evening my brother and his girlfriend came by as well, much to the dismay of the nurse since it was all way busy for her liking. The nurses were very friendly though, and they were OK with me having visitors even when visitor hours were over.

During the afternoon we got a visit from an assistant of my surgeon who wanted to check on the wound and give me a report of the surgery. They ended up removing three lymph nodes. Two of them were “hot” as they call them. They were the ones with the most radioactive material and therefore the first in the line of multiple lymph nodes. They took both out as they weren’t sure which one was the sentinel. And another they took out just to be sure.

They didn’t put a drain in because the wound looked good and was dry when they patched me up, which was a good thing. There would be a chance that it would start bleeding again during the night, in which case they might have to remove any dried blood via surgery again. The chance of this happening was higher for me because of my age, but luckily this didn’t happen.

At some point in the evening the nurse came by telling me that I had to go to the toilet before 9PM, just to make sure everything works. She also said that Owen was allowed to stay the night, and the couch could be turned into a bed very easily. Best news ever. After all other visitors had gone and it was just me and Owen the nurse came to help me to the toilet. I had been feeling fairly fine up until that point, but while getting up my body betrayed me. I moved like a 100 year old, shaky and unstable. Sleeping went OK for the first part, but unfortunately the lady next door was having a lot of pain which meant that she was constantly making moaning sounds. Awake and in quite a bit more discomfort than what I was before I asked for an extra painkiller (I had had some paracetamol and naproxen until then). That helped me sleep quite well till the morning came around.

In the morning, before breakfast, I was asked to wash which proved quite the challenge. Luckily Owen could help out here. The disinfectant used during the surgery was bright pink, so a part of my body was still covered in that. I could not use my left arm, and the right had had the IV in still, so it was tricky getting things done. It did help me feel a lot better though. Getting back into my own clothes afterwards also helped a ton.

I’m not quite sure yet when the bandage was taken off, but I do remember thinking that the gash looked more clean than what I was expecting. The cut was also a lot longer than I was anticipating, around 20 centimeters horizontally. The area around that was still feeling numb and the main pain came from under my armpit where the lymph nodes were removed.

In my own clothes and in small steps I was led to a room where I was to get a bra from the hospital that had a pocket for a cloth prosthetic. They made me look in the mirror to make sure I was happy with it. I didn’t really want to look and I didn’t recognize myself when I did, but I understand why they made me look. I had just lost a breast and had to accept that and learn that it was OK.

Afterwards I had a couple more naps before my mom would pick Owen and me up from the hospital to drive us home. I live 10 mins walking from the hospital, but was not able to walk that. We had some food in the hospital restaurant before leaving, I was hungry and ate maybe a little bit too much. All of a sudden my body had a lot to deal with, it just walked to the restaurant, had to process the food, and of course at that moment I got a hot flash as well. Nausea, shaky vision, muscles feeling like lead, it was pretty horrible. My mom and Owen could only watch and wait for it to pass. It did fade though, after 5 minutes or so that seemed to last an eternity.

Once at home the recovery process began. The first day I would be at my own place still, and my dad would pick me up the next day so I could spend a long weekend at my parents house while Owen worked.