Emergency Room

Late yesterday, while I was at a stake meeting, Chandy texted me and told me that I had to come right home because she was experiencing some unbearable pain.

This kind of came out of nowhere. As you can see from her last blog, she has been dealing with an accumulation of fluid in her right armpit. You would think that it would be soft and mushy because it's filled with fluid but it is as hard as a rock. She's been just taking tylenol or ibuprofen over the last number of days and it seemed the pain had been manageable.

The situation had been gradually getting worse until yesterday about 5pm when she realized that she couldn't continue the way it was. She took a few ibuprofens about 6pm and they had no affect.

When I got home from the meeting she was in the fetal position in our bedroom beside herself in pain. It seems the pressure from the "capsule" of fluid was pressing on some main nerve. Thankfully she has been saving her last percocet just in case. I had her take it (after twisting her arm) at about 7pm and I called the after hours number for her reconstructive surgeon.

Don't tell anybody, and Keith if you're reading this please close at least one eye...I had Cody (who still only has his learners driving permit) take the car and drive his brothers to their grandmothers house so they wouldn't see their mother in so much pain or hear the words coming from her mouth (nothing horrible, just the bad words you might find in the Bible).

Thankfully Cody made it there in one piece without jeopardizing his own life, the life of his brothers or anyone else on the road. It's good to have a first born who can look after his brothers in a bind. It's also a huge plus to have Chandy's parents living so close to us.

Dr. Ferguson called me almost immediately after he received the page and asked me to check for the typical signs of infection...redness, fever, heat at the part of her armpit affected. Thankfully she had none of the symptoms. He was hoping to maybe see her this morning to address the problem but I let him know that there was no way she was going to make it through the night in her condition.

He was nice enough to meet us at the IMC emergency room about an hour later where he drained an incredible amount of fluid from her. By the time we got to the emergency room, the percocet had taken affect and at least Chandy got some minor relief from the pain she was experiencing.

After Dr. Ferguson was through removing the majority of the fluid, she was pretty well back to normal. He mentioned that he was going to meet with Dr. Rasmussen (the surgeon who performed the mastectomy) this morning and they would decide the best course of action to take from here to make sure this didn't happen again.

We just found out that they have decided to keep an eye on her and not perform another surgery to remove the "capsule" or install another drain because they believe that the fluid will continue to diminish. We can only hope so.

I can't stand this feeling of being helpless! I can't help but wish that this problem was something that I could just get my hands on so I could cut loose and kick it's a........it would be such a nice stress relief and I'm certain I would feel so much better afterwards! I've always thought that if someone/something ever attacked my wife that I would be able to take care of it the old fashioned way, knuckle and skull...but this attacker is beyond my ability and it drives me mad.

Isn't it too early in the process for me to be tired of it already?

I am just so thankful that I have not only married the prettiest girl I know, but the toughest one as well.

G