Things they don't tell you...

3 weeks after my last procedure - I had been declared a healing champion.   All is well and on with normalcy.

Saturday I woke up to a fever and a newly resurrected frankenbreast.  It was swollen to the point under my arm where I could not straighten my right arm out without hitting it.  Chills and fatigue and to add to the general atmosphere,- a 4 month old laptop that overheated and died. 

Kept thinking that it would be ok - did not want to end up in another circle of hell.

After sleeping almost 23 hours/day through the weekend, got up on Monday and it was worse, chills and achy pains shooting randomly through my chest. Went to work and wheedled an appt with the resident that under
anesthesia I had cursed to a level that was commented on by many nurses.

One of the more common side effects of the Savi catheter (of which I was never informed) is chronic
 seronoma.   It's a given that the cavity that the tissue was removed from and the catheter was inserted into, will fill with fluid when closed.  In time the fluid should be reabsorbed through the body and the breast will sort of deflate.  In a lot of cases, however, for some unknown reason (and they have no cause), the fluid will continue to build and until it inflates the breast like a water balloon and the pressure continues to build until they stick an 18 gauge needle in the side of your breast and relieve the pressure.- it's weird - you can actually feel the pressure being relieved as they remove syringe after syringe of fluid - ahhhhh.

Dr Bovine ended up doing the procedure - she is much better when not delivering bad news, however she assured me that there is nothing I can do to prevent this from happening again (she smiled serenely while pronouncing this) , and after it happens once, it almost always comes back, thus the label chronic seronoma.   Some people go their whole life having to be drained weekly and it never resolves, some it eventually quiets down.  I can feel significant fluid build up since the drain yesterday - so I am thinking that I am yet again - one of the wrong percentage group.

Just wondering why no one thought this was a significant side effect to mention to me.

And just so you know, I remember that I am one of the lucky ones in the world of cancer, but, lucky has a whole new meaning in this universe =I may lose everything I own, even with insurance, amd I may never get my energy back, but at least I am not unconscious on a gurney in the radiation ward with a thin sheet on top of me while people walk by indifferently.