Open Mind, Strong Body, Beautiful Soul by Coco Dorsey
June 7, 2007 - visit with Brad Baltz
July 2, 2007 - double mastectomy and beginning reconstruction
I'm pretty sure I didn't speak for at least 3 days during this ordeal...How do you? What do you say to anyone when you are getting ready to get your womanhood cut off....keith was worried about what they would do with my boobs after they cut them off...I got amused by this thought of his.....what the hell does it matter what they do with them? He was so upset about where his wife's chest would end up...in the trash? Good question actually....
I had to be at the hospital at 11:00 am... my surgery was scheduled for 12:30...Dr. Fant was going to take off the breasts (yes and the skin and nipple too)and tissue down to my chest wall....afterwards, Dr. Ed Love would take over in the same operating room and place the tissue expanders that eventually would be filled with saline each week as they stretched my skin....in order to put in real silicone implants...this would take months of course....I had lots of drugs for a week or so....i do remember two things in the hospital though....both memories I wish I could forget...
The first one was waking up the next morning after I had my breasts removed...it was 6 am...dr. fant was making her rounds.....she woke me up from my drug-induced coma...she made me look at my chest....wow! they were really gone....I had no boobs! The expanders were in place...and slightly resembled an unleavened ciabatta roll if there was such a thing...you know the square rolls you can guy at the grocery....The one thing I never realized was that, while taking my tissue, they would also have to take all of my nerves....I had no feeling in my chest...or in my armpits...or even on some parts of my back....This feeling is still with me today....And one I will never get used to....
My attention quickly turned to my husband....i realized that I had not checked on david....david had a massive, last-chance surgery the same day I had mine...and at the same hospital....what was his status? Keith informed me that during david's lung removal he had endured a few strokes...but that they thought he would be okay....he was, of course, in the intensive care unit....recovering just 3 floors below me....Keena made it up to my room about an hour later to check on me....She said david was doing okay...but much better than was expected....I was relieved to hear of his surviving the surgery that they had said might kill him...David had asked Keena to take him to me....so we could eat our lunch together....which obviously was an impossibility....Keith went down to visit with him though that afternoon....reported back to me that he didn't look good....gave him the tshirt we had gotten signed by his favorite, Robert Earl Keen, the week before at a concert in memphis we had attended .....He signed the shirt "To David, here's to feeling good again"...Several weeks later I would find out during a phone call from his widow that that shirt had made his day...his week....his year....
