Being At Home

Having been at home for about 4 days now, I have trained a better stamina slowly but surely. Another thing to cheer is that I have trained my over-pampered left hand and arm to be able to pick-up simple chores already. A few things which are not progressing as good are probably my ability to neutralize the mood. It fluctuates easily. Loud laughters are bursted easily but lousy crankiness could set in almost immediately too. I will take smaller steps to conquer this area.

The next thing would probably be the tightness, numbness and uncomfortable pulling pain under the right arm. Putting it into a percentage count, this discomfort I'm feeling has just decreased by 10%. Again, I'm being impatient.

Upon the 3rd day of discharge, I had made a trip down to the hospital to have my seroma extracted. The pile of water has created a bulging pain and added on discomfort to the chest and underarm. I texted nurse T for ad-hoc appointment. T has always been accommodating and helpful in attending my requests.

T extracted about 135ml of seroma from the chest area. The procedure was like blood extracting, except that I didn't feel anything due to the numbness. The drain site gauze was replaced with a much smaller waterproof bandage. And I was given the approval to shower from there on :)

T also introduced me to the discharge kit/bra for temp wear until I complete or at least stabilise the swollen area before I purchase the silicone and permanent bra. In addition to that, T has shared with me a lot of newsletter from the support group which she established, and invited me to join the groups in the coming sessions.

...

Last night, I finally braved myself to call up my mum to tell her what I have gone through in the last 2 weeks. I was surprisingly calm and every tone was peacefully positive. That helped her go understand my situation, and ease her pain. As expected, mummy broke into tears and kept asking, "why does this happen to you? as if we don't suffer enough?" She's referring to my daddy who survived colon cancer for almost 10 years now, who also went through a bypass surgery for his heart problem, but ended up with dementia now due to his stroke attack 3 years back.

I felt her. But holding my tears, I can't help but to continue console her by saying, the last thing I want is to add on her worries and her burden. I told her I'm being well taken care of my family here. I'm just going to complete all the treatments recommended by the doctor and recover by early next year.

...

I feel relieved after informing my family members. I learn to be more open-minded and face the fact more positively now. All the supports from the loved ones, family members and friends have meant a lot to me, and given me the force to fight on.

Til then :)