A Story of a Different Kind by Maxine

Plan B

The month of August 2012 has been a lifetime for me. Up until this month, I have had a few bumps in the road, hit a few dead ends and even drove off the road a few times, but I have always managed to get back on the right path and make the best of things. The first of this month, I found a small lump in my right breast, and told my doctor about it. He ordered several tests including a biopsy. It came back "suspicious abnormality," so he did a lumpectomy. That revealed he didn't get it all, because it had tripled in size very quickly. He did a nuclear dye test on me and discovered it had advanced to stage 3 because it had gotten into my lymph glands and "took off." On the 7th of this month, August, I had a mastectomy with drainage tubes for 8 days. This is where plan A changes.

I had the tubes removed on Wednesday, August 15th. Everything seemed to be on schedule. For some strange reason, I told Bill that if I ever woke him up in the middle of the night and could only say "HOSPITAL" I would need him to move FAST. He asked me why I would even be thinking of something like that. I told him, I didn't know, it just came to me to say that to him!

Thursday night I ate supper early, so at 9:00 I ate a small helping of applesauce to take my final pills with and went to bed. At 1:30 I woke up and went to the bathroom to tinkle, and everything was as normal as could be. I went back to bed and to sleep. At 5:15, I woke up with my tongue tingling. I got up and looked in the mirror, and it was twice as big as it was supposed to be. I went back to the bedroom, turned on the overhead light and tried to speak, but all I could say was "HOSPITAL!" It was more like HA-PIT-AL! Bill jumped up and we left for the hospital, 3 miles away.

I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and started writing my name, what I had eaten last, and the date of my surgery. We went to the emergency entrance, and I handed them this paper. My tongue was so big I couldn't get it back into my mouth. I couldn't speak, spit, or swallow. I was drooling slick slime into a red solo cup.

They went to work on me and started to put a tube into my throat, but I finally got through to them that I COULD BREATHE through my nose at this point. My eyes must have been as big as my tongue! I was hooked up to several pieces of hospital equipment to run tests. I could only grunt yes and no!

They were convinced I had eaten something about 4:00 or had gone outside and was bitten by something. NO! I didn't! NO!

An Internist, medical investigator came in to go over me from head to toe and check every square inch of my body. He didn't even smile while he was going over me. Now I'll admit, I was NOT a pretty sight laying there with a tongue hanging out of my mouth, missing a boob, still black and blue from the surgery, and I had intended to shave my legs that morning, but he could have at least smiled at me, don't you think?

He was looking for an insect bite somewhere. He even took off my socks and looked between my toes. Nothing was left untouched. I deserved a smile!!

After several IV's and injections, and about 4 hours, my tongue went down, and I could talk. They kept me overnight to observe me, and the diagnosis was IDIOPATHIC ANGIOEDEMA! So for someone who doesn't know what that means, it stands for "THEY DON'T KNOW". It was just severe swelling for some idiotic reason. It scared the bejeepers out of us.

So now I'm attempting to follow Plan C and see if that is a better path.

I am doing great again this morning. I always manage to bounce back quickly after an ordeal, and I am in good spirits again. I will start chemo next week. Things might change again, but for now I am fine. Just had a different kind of story to write about. No snakes were involved.