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Double Setup

Double Set Up


The first lump was the scariest in 1983.
 I had found it in the shower.
 Two other major surgeries I've already had that very year.
 I was thirty three.
 A mammogram back then was so different.
 I remember a round cylinder with a purple glow.
 The radiologist came in and said:"Your breast are full of lumps."
 My knees weakened and my stomach rose to my throat.
 You have fibrocystic breast disease.
 So off to my surgeon of choice I would go.

 I had two choices back then.
 I could have a biopsy be woke up and told the results of the frozen section.
 A second surgery then scheduled.
 Or I could go to sleep with a double set up.
 One was for a biopsy and one for a mastectomy.
 Double consent forms signed and off to sleep you go not knowing what you wake up to.
 Because of the recent surgeries, I decided on the double set up.
 I would not know what to expect.
 I was a circulating nurse in surgery and knew all about mastectomies and cutting edge reconstruction for 1983.
 I knew a large pressure bandage meant a mastectomy and when I woke up it was large.
 I cried, not knowing I had bled too much from the benign lumpectomy site.

 The second biopsy was 1989 just after my father had died.
 This time I chose to be awake with a local and self-hypnosis.
 The first anesthesiologist said NO so a second had to be found.
 My surgeon had reluctantly agreed with permission to put me to sleep if she saw fit.
 So with my signal and a local anesthetic injection, it began.
 This had never been done before in this hospital with the patient awake.

 The lump was at the exact same spot as the first.
 It was deeper than first thought so some IV versed was given.
 Versed relaxes and causes amnesia so you don't remember the pain.
 The medical student working with my surgeon was intrigued that I was wide awake.
 He had just finished his OB rotation where I taught him how to birth.
 The frozen section was negative and the lump removed.
 A simple dressing was applied.

 The day surgery nurses were pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to be watched for anesthesia side effects.
 They couldn't believe I had hypnotized myself.
 So now all biopsies are done under local and versed.
 No more going to sleep wandering if you wake up to just one breast.
 The trauma of treatment slightly minimized by giving a woman more choices.

 Since then there have been a couple of lumps treated with no caffeine and Vitamin E and Fish Oil.
 Repeat mammograms and ultrasounds.
 Monthly self breast exams.
 I've been lucky and I am grateful and practice preventive care.
 When I first started nursing all women went into surgery with a double set up and the surgeon and the husband made the decision when to take off the breast.
 I always thought it barbaric to treat a woman this way.

 I now know of two women who refused to do preventive care.
 One is dead after waiting too late to get any treatment started.
 The second although 91 will not even see a doctor.
 It will be a terrible death with rotting flesh and pain.

 I also have done medical chart audits with woman after woman refusing mammograms and denying doing self breast exams or having PAP smears.
 Two simple exams to save your life;
 Why I ask would a woman do this to herself and family?

Copyright © Sharon Edwards | Year Posted 2015

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