THIS WAS NOT A CLASS
So, I received pre-op paperwork that was maybe 30ish pages long and included an amazing amount of information, including that I should make an appointment for a Breast Surgery Education Class that's held twice a month. It happened to land exactly 1 week prior to my surgery. We were in the midst of moving and feeling pretty stressed and emotionally and physically depleted, but I wasn't going to miss something that might be crucial to this process, so I got up early that morning to meet Salvation Army at the old place for a donation pickup (they never showed up) and then raced home to get ready so that my mom and I could get to the class. We got there 5 minutes late and, as soon as we sat down, we determined that THIS WAS NOT A CLASS.
It wasn't mandatory or necessary, although I didn't know that ahead of time. It was actually a VERY poorly run support group which was facilitated by a very young and seemingly inexperienced woman who repeatedly misread the handouts to the attendees and reiterated certain things to the point that I almost punched myself in the face. I can only hope she was training and that we were her guinea pigs.
But, she did really stress the importance of hiking.
And taking time to hike.
And to make sure we do things that distract us prior to surgery, like, maybe a hike.
And if we wanted to, we could possibly try a hike.
At that point, I was pretty over the hiking thing and really wanted to suggest that maybe she was the one who should immediately go take one...
She also made sure to let us know that we would be in a lot of pain and might have very difficult feelings about ourselves and our new appearance, post surgery.
As you can imagine, I really appreciated her pointing out that novel concept.
The "class" was supposed to allow us to learn about our surgeries and ask questions, to walk us through everything associated with whatever type of breast surgery we were having, etc. So I asked questions. I wouldn't say it went well.
Her: You definitely should not be consuming any caffeine prior to surgery or after surgery. Especially because you will be in so much pain and won't want to add to the pain by having a caffeine withdrawal headache.
Me: I saw in my pre-op paperwork to limit post-surgery consumption of caffeine, but haven't heard anything about eliminating it from my diet completely or limiting it at all prior. Is there any reason to cut it out completely, prior to surgery, other than caffeine withdrawal headaches?
Her: No, ok, so yes, you definitely do need to cut it out ahead of time because you definitely don't want to be dealing with caffeine-withdrawal after surgery.
Me: Ok, I'm just trying to clarify as I'm not impacted by caffeine and I drink tea every single day. I haven't been told I should cut it out and just want to make sure that it isn't contraindicated for some other reason. I don't get caffeine-withdrawal symptoms, so I'm not worried about headaches.
Her: Ok, yeah, so in that case if you don't get headaches, it's totally ok, except definitely don't have it before or after surgery at all.
And then I stopped, because it was very clear that we were moving into Who's On First territory and I didn't have the patience.
It was pretty disappointing that we wasted that time, especially on that day. I was diagnosed 4 weeks ago and everything has been thrown up in the air. My husband and I were celebrating 5 years from our first date and had a dinner reservation at one of our favorite places that night. It would be our last date night out for a while and we thought it would be a nice end to a stressful and quick move. But, the donation pickup never came, which left us hauling car loads of things to the Council Thrift Shop at the end of the day and pulling furniture, workout equipment and art out on to the sidewalk, hoping random people would stop and take them. Our dinner reservation was at 730 and we finally finished around 9, really dusty and sweaty and not in any shape to go out to dinner. I surprised him with a bottle of wine to toast our old place one last time, sitting on the hardwood floor of the empty house we lived a lot of life in and then he surprised me with flowers at the new place when we got home. We ended up eating pasta out of to-go containers, drinking wine and toasting to the last 5 years that have been a bit hectic since that first date. It turned out to be a really nice way to begin the next 5 years -- with hope that this will be the worst of them and that we will, somehow, be stronger because of this.
It wasn't mandatory or necessary, although I didn't know that ahead of time. It was actually a VERY poorly run support group which was facilitated by a very young and seemingly inexperienced woman who repeatedly misread the handouts to the attendees and reiterated certain things to the point that I almost punched myself in the face. I can only hope she was training and that we were her guinea pigs.
But, she did really stress the importance of hiking.
And taking time to hike.
And to make sure we do things that distract us prior to surgery, like, maybe a hike.
And if we wanted to, we could possibly try a hike.
At that point, I was pretty over the hiking thing and really wanted to suggest that maybe she was the one who should immediately go take one...
She also made sure to let us know that we would be in a lot of pain and might have very difficult feelings about ourselves and our new appearance, post surgery.
As you can imagine, I really appreciated her pointing out that novel concept.
The "class" was supposed to allow us to learn about our surgeries and ask questions, to walk us through everything associated with whatever type of breast surgery we were having, etc. So I asked questions. I wouldn't say it went well.
Her: You definitely should not be consuming any caffeine prior to surgery or after surgery. Especially because you will be in so much pain and won't want to add to the pain by having a caffeine withdrawal headache.
Me: I saw in my pre-op paperwork to limit post-surgery consumption of caffeine, but haven't heard anything about eliminating it from my diet completely or limiting it at all prior. Is there any reason to cut it out completely, prior to surgery, other than caffeine withdrawal headaches?
Her: No, ok, so yes, you definitely do need to cut it out ahead of time because you definitely don't want to be dealing with caffeine-withdrawal after surgery.
Me: Ok, I'm just trying to clarify as I'm not impacted by caffeine and I drink tea every single day. I haven't been told I should cut it out and just want to make sure that it isn't contraindicated for some other reason. I don't get caffeine-withdrawal symptoms, so I'm not worried about headaches.
Her: Ok, yeah, so in that case if you don't get headaches, it's totally ok, except definitely don't have it before or after surgery at all.
And then I stopped, because it was very clear that we were moving into Who's On First territory and I didn't have the patience.
It was pretty disappointing that we wasted that time, especially on that day. I was diagnosed 4 weeks ago and everything has been thrown up in the air. My husband and I were celebrating 5 years from our first date and had a dinner reservation at one of our favorite places that night. It would be our last date night out for a while and we thought it would be a nice end to a stressful and quick move. But, the donation pickup never came, which left us hauling car loads of things to the Council Thrift Shop at the end of the day and pulling furniture, workout equipment and art out on to the sidewalk, hoping random people would stop and take them. Our dinner reservation was at 730 and we finally finished around 9, really dusty and sweaty and not in any shape to go out to dinner. I surprised him with a bottle of wine to toast our old place one last time, sitting on the hardwood floor of the empty house we lived a lot of life in and then he surprised me with flowers at the new place when we got home. We ended up eating pasta out of to-go containers, drinking wine and toasting to the last 5 years that have been a bit hectic since that first date. It turned out to be a really nice way to begin the next 5 years -- with hope that this will be the worst of them and that we will, somehow, be stronger because of this.
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