You're kidding, right? Not again...

So here I sit another Saturday night in a hospital. This was supposed to be a simple visit to the ER for antibiotics and now 4 days later I'm sitting in room 303 of Summerlin Hospital recovering from surgery.
Tuesday, I woke up feverish and symptoms of a cold which really pissed me off because I was supposed to go to my second session of chemo on Wednesday. I slept most of the day Tuesday after taking some cold meds and about 6 oclock my fever was 102.5 and my left expander in my breast felt swollen. I took some advil and just figured I slept on the expander wrong but 4 hours later my breast was swollen to double its size, the skin was red and looked awful. To the ER at Valley hospital we went because I figured thats where I spent so much time last visit, they would have me on file and make my visit quick and avoid all that unnecessary hospital transfers.
Of course at the ER they took blood, did chest xrays, immediately put my on a strong antibiotic called Vancomyacin and said that it appeared my left tissue expander had become infected. Just grreeaat! About 30 minutes into my dose of Vanco, my lips started to feel funny, my skin hot and my whole face swelled up and hives covered my skin. Apparently I'm allergic to Vancomyacin and thankfully it was fixed with a shot of Benadryl. They immediately switched my antibiotic and said they were keeping me overnight for observation.
On Wednesday I pretty much sat in the same ER bed because the hospital was so full they didn't have an available bed to move me to. They continued to run my on antibiotics and sent me for a breast ultrasound to see if there was fluid or something wrong with the expander. The ultrasound didn't show fluid so they explained that they thought that the infection was making the skin and tissue swell and I needed to stay in the hospital so they could continue IV antibiotics. At about 11pm I was finally moved to a room.
Thursday morning, my oncologist stopped in the tell me that my cancer markers had stayed the same and to not panic that I couldn't do chemo, to take care of the infection and maybe we could do chemo next week. My surgeon came in after him and said that he was concerned I developed an infection and thought that it was just time we ditch the wound vac (even though it had only been in a few days) and ordered a consult for a skin graph to close the wound. Said an open wound at this point was too much and we needed to close close close. A little while later a regular rounds doc came in and said that he spoke to my surgeon and other doctors and what they think would be best is for my plastic surgeon to take a look at both the breast and consult on the skin graph but my doc wouldn't come to Valley so I needed to be transported to Summerlin. GREEAT!! Exactly what I was trying to avoid!! At 6pm I was transported by van to Summerlin Hospital.
Around 9:30pm my plastic surgeon came and saw me. He suggested the one thing I was dreading hearing - that the expanders needed to come out. I was devastated. Talk about take two steps back! It took me two surgeries and weeks of drains, pains and sleeping in a recliner to put these expanders in and now I'm going to lose them. I know they can be put back in eventually but now I have to start all over again, the whole process all over again. I'm not going to lie, there were tears shed and I've had an attitude ever since. I'm just EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED. I know chemo takes precedence but I was looking forward to expanding and getting back to looking and feeling normal. Now the implants have to wait until chemo is over. It's like goodbye boobs, again!!
Friday night at 7 I went in for surgery and everything went just fine. The expanders came out with no problem and the plastic surgeon said he saw infection and there was good reason for the implants to come out. He also decided that my wound on the back of my neck did not require a skin graph and so he actually cleaned out all the yellow stuff inside the wound and sewed it back together with two types of stitching. The inside with dissolved stitches and the outside skin with stitches that will need removing. He said he hopes the two layers of stitching will ensure the wound stays together and heals properly this time. I don't have a lot of pain since this time there was no stretching of the muscle or anything like that. The pain is mostly where the stitches are in both my neck and breasts. I have drains on each side of my chest to catch any fluid that collects and am still on IV antibiotics but said the last blood test they ran, they no longer see any sign of infection.
Tomorrow the plastic surgeon will stop in and see me and assess whether I can go home or not. We shall see.
In the only good news I have to report, my best friend Tania is coming to see me next week from Mon to Thu. It has been waaay too long since I've seen her and I can't wait until shes here. Hopefully she'll keep me sane when I feel like going on a murdering rampage...