A very expensive vacation

NOTE: possibly TMI for some people, as far as medical stuff. If you're really triggery. But there's really only one bit in the next paragraph that's gross.

Well, so... going back to the previous radiation narrative, Monday night I had a slight sunburn, it seemed like. Tuesday night my breast tissue just felt kind of weird, but what do I know about what's normal for radiation, right? I was seeing the doctor on Wednesday anyway, so I figured I'd just ask her then. And then Wednesday I went ahead and had the radiation treatment (I did mention this to the techs, but they said the same thing, to talk to the doctor afterwards), so that's what we did. I had also noticed before my appointment that my breast looked...larger. Honestly, what I was thinking was just that I was having a weird reaction to the radiation, but that turned out not to be the case, I guess. The RadOnc doctor looked at it and went, yeah, you're right, that's not good. She thought it looked like my (now three-month old) incision from the lumpectomy was getting infected. so she sent me back over to the surgeon's office (it was way up in the afternoon by this point, and I was supposed to be at work). The surgeon prodded at it and went, "Yeah, this isn't good," and they drained a godawful amount of gunk out of my breast - so, yeah, I guess my breast was larger - and then she announced that she was going to admit me.

I spent three days in the hospital. I got out yesterday. The weird part was that I didn't feel sick. (Surgeon: "You would have.") Missed a whole week of work. Read a whole Expanse novel - that took me big chunks of two days - and some other stuff besides. Watched a lot of TV. All we were really waiting on was test results and meanwhile I was having IV antibiotics every few hours. Rob brought me iced tea and my Kindle and stuff, but I didn't try to get him to stay with me for more than an hour or so a day. He was going and coming from work, and I just didn't feel the need to be that needy, you know? (And I also decided that I wasn't going to say anything about it online til I was out. It just seemed too complicated to go into, I don't know.)

So, let's see, Wednesday night was when I got admitted. There's a new(ish) little UTMB hospital in League City which is in the same complex where I was having radiation, so all I did was move my car around to the other side. (The only hospital I'd ever been admitted to in my entire life before this was the Galveston one, going back to when I was a kid.) By Thursday it was noticeably better, but I still had to stay for the antibiotics. They don't do IV antibiotics on an outpatient basis, I knew that. By Friday it was even more noticeably better, but the surgeon still wasn't satisfied, and she said if it wasn't way better on Saturday she was going to open it up and clean it out. So I spent Friday night thinking that was likely to happen, but they also switched antibiotics again, and on Saturday she was happy, and let me go home (after one more round of antibiotics). So now I have gigantic horse-pill antibiotics that I have to take for SIX WEEKS, as well as pain pills that I'm not even going to take unless I start having much more pain than I have had so far. But on the other hand, this whole thing could have been so much worse. (And the surgeon, always cheery, said, "You're not out of the woods yet!" - I guess that was supposed to keep me taking my pills, for one thing.)

Luckily we do have really good insurance. (I feel like I should, like, knock on wood for even saying that, though.) Oh, and also I can report that hospital food is dramatically improved since I last had to try and eat it. Thank goodness.