Post Operative Depression

I found this on someone else's site and it's worth reproducing.

Post Operative Depression

Breast reduction is an involved surgery that covers a large and sensitive surface area. It is going to take time and rest to heal. But, many times we tend to forget that. As well as your body going through a major trauma, your emotions run the full spectrum while you seek information, visit doctors, and prepare for the surgery. Once you finally make it to the hospital, you are given general anesthesia just prior to and during your surgery. When you wake up in the recovery room you may be given intravenous injections of Morphine (or other very strong narcotic pain medication).  At home you will have prescription-strength pain medications as well. 

To add to your situation you just had a surgery that changed your body a great deal. You are excited and want to be accepted by the people you love with your new body. You are also held back from enjoying your new body by the recovery process. There are feelings about spending so many years saddled with large breasts and uncertainty of how to define yourself afterwards.  You have made a tremendous life change in just a few hours of surgery.

What do you get when you combine all of this? Post-op depression!

Post-op depression is very common for any surgery patient. In most cases, this is a temporary condition that resolves itself within two weeks. Should you have depression that lasts beyond two weeks, please contact your plastic surgeon and/or your primary care physician. They should be notified of your difficulties and there may be medical intervention.

In the meantime, what can you do to help with your depression?

* Don't beat yourself up about it. It's so normal. Give yourself permission to cry and talk about it. Just being able to express your feelings goes a long way towards helping you to feel better.

* Make sure you are drinking plenty of water. This water will help to flush out the large amounts of medication that have been put into your body in a short period of time.

* Eat a sensible diet. Make sure that you are eating healthy food on a regular basis. This will give your body the energy it needs to heal.

* Rest! At BreastHealthOnline we cannot stress this enough. You have been through a lengthy and involved surgery and your body needs every available resource to heal what it perceives as "injuries." Please read Pre op & Post Op Nutrition, Hydration, Healing & Rest for more details on what your body needs post op.

* Relax. Have someone give you a foot massage, hand massage, back rub, or a shoulder and neck rub. Light scented candles and play soft music or allow yourself a good cry. Do what you can to pamper yourself and allow others to pamper you.

Again, if your depression lasts more than two weeks please call your plastic surgeon or primary care physician.

Day 9, yukky

I still feel awful. Very tired, fell asleep at lunch time for 2 hours. Nasty oozy stuff coming out, better go and get the nurses to check it out tomorrow. Feel very shivery at times. Taking the antibiotics to keep infection at bay but it does look infected regardless. Right side is BLACK, and this is not a nice sight, as if part of you has been dead about a week. 

I keep getting memories of the drains coming out, that shocking feeling and sound, and I yell at the thought of it and nearly can't stand the memory. Post traumatic stress I suppose.

I used to like having a shower, but now I dread it, because I have to look at the mess. 

At least the glands in my neck are not swollen any more from the anaesthetic tube.

I feel grumpy and miserable. 

8th Day, Sudden Shooting Pains

Still feeling horrible. Sudden shooting pains which apparently could go on for months. Started to get a cough, maybe an infection. 

Since the operation I had swollen glands in my neck, front and back, from the anaesthetic tube, and today is the first day I haven't noticed the pain from those.

I started to shake and shiver around 7pm and thought I might have to call the doctor, but it settled down. 

The 7th Day, Blisters

Although weak and exhausted I had to get out of bed and get to the doctor. I had horrible blisters everywhere especially under my arms. I couldn't think what caused such a thing. Also things were kind of oozing and nasty looking. 

The doctor was pretty shocked, she'd never seen this kind of operation before. It does look dreadful. She called up to the nurses station to see if they knew about it, and they had seen lots of them, so she sent me up there to get dressed & sorted and gave me a script for antibiotics due to a slight infection. Infection, of course, can kill you in these cases so it can't be ignored.

The nurses were really nice. They said they had seen people in a much worse state. They thought the stitching was very neatly done and said it must have been a very good surgeon. They cleaned me up and put some non-sticking dressings on the oozy bits. 

The horrible blisters are caused by an allergy to the tape that holds bandages on.

It was so nice to get cleaned up. I have not been able to get the area wet, so it smelt awful. They suggested getting a crop top. I had a quick look for one at the shops, while feeling very faint and nearly blacking out at times, but they only make those things up to size 12, bastards.

Getting to the doctor was not easy. I had to painfully get dressed (there is no pain as long as I don't move!). I had to try and get a parking spot right outside the doctors as I am too weak to walk. That took half an hour of driving round and round. 

Even sitting in the waiting room everything was going black from time to time and I nearly passed out. I have just lost so much fluid and blood. 

Now I am back home and will get into bed and stay there until tomorrow.

Home

It was a relief to get rid of those drains. I felt a lot more free to move about, except that the tight feeling was awful. I was scared to look at my gown because of the blood but it did start to dry up after a few hours. 

I was to go home, even though I was still totally zonked out by the oxycodone. 

So I got driven home, and on the way stopped at a cafe for fried eggs on toast and capuccino, and it's a wonder they didn't call in the Drug Squad. Maybe it was a nice cafe for bogan junkies. 

At home I was so exhausted I couldn't sleep. After you have been sleep-deprived for days and days, you often cannot settle any more, so I had to take a sleeping pill. I eventually fell asleep at about midnight, and slept 'til 8am, which was good. I hope that I will get more and more sleep as the days go by.

I still have to sleep on my back. But my own bed is soft, so back-sleeping doesn't hurt. It is so nice to have my own pillow.

I told the dogs I couldn't take them for a walk, but if they'd self-walk, then I'd take them to the beach and they could do that. In my dressing gown, I drove the 1 km to the beach and let them out of the car. They took themselves for a nice trot. It was great to look out at the blue sparkling sea and the green grass on the cliff tops. I felt weak and tired and shaky, but I did it for them, as they hadn't been out in a week.

I don't know if I will think it was worthwhile in the future. We'll have to wait and see.

At the moment, I wish to God I had never got it done.

I have been so sick, I wouldn't be surprised if it's taken years off my life. My nerves are shattered. I feel a wreck. 

Drains out, the truth you need to know

The very worst, most depressing part of the whole ordeal was the hideous, sickening, blood-filled drains. It was the drains that made me cry all the time. I felt like a cancer patient. I looked like I was dying, that's for sure. If I took the lift downstairs to buy the paper, people would stare in horror and hurry away. 

On the 5th day, it was decided not much was coming out of the drains any more, and they should come out. The job was assigned to a very experienced surgical sister, triple-certificated, who had worked in the Solomons with no doctor to back her up for several years. When operations were needed in that remote area, she was the surgeon's assistant and did a lot of the work. At least I had the best. 

She said it would be best if I got almost-knocked-out by the dreaded Hillbilly Heroin. We agreed to a 5mg first dose, then a further 5mg if I still felt OK after an hour, so that's what happened. That way, if I was feeling it was stopping me from breathing, I could say I didn't want any more.

The drains are not just sticking there on the edge of the relevant bit of anatomy. They are stitched in place, but they go right up inside you, in a half-circle. Several days after they are placed there, tissue has begun to grow onto them and cling to them, so they are well and truly stuck.

To say I was terrified is an understatement. I think in most cases, these evil things ought to be removed under a light general anaesthetic. 

The nurse well and truly warned me about the sensations I would feel. A pulling, tugging feeling, probably quite a bit of pain, some nasty sounds and a bit of a gush of blood.

I'd say it was worse than that. I'd describe it as having a double molar tooth pulled from the middle of your anatomical bits without pain relief. The sound was sickening. It was like a small explosion as the tissue let go of the plastic tube and it pulled free.

After the first one, I needed a few minutes to collect myself. I did yell, but not a lot. I didn't yell for the second one, I was expecting the horrendous feeling and sound.  By the way, removing the 2 stitches holding them in place, which had been stinging me like wasps for days, wasn't painful at all. The stitches part was OK, but not the other part.

Why didn't anyone else's BR blog describe this horrible thing? Well you have got it here.

Think about it carefully. Don't have the bloody operation unless you can handle the removal of the drains without requiring ten years of psychiatric work to recover from the shock.

I don't believe in psychiatrists, but I think it will take me many months, or even years, to even BEGIN to forget this particular nightmare.

After the drains came out, I felt like a real bogan junkie, and had visions of going down to the railway station to 'hang out' and get more of that stuff. Yeah, dripping blood all the way from where the drains had been.

"It'll slough off in the shower"

One morning the doctor came (the hospital Registrar) came and looked under the dressings. "Your right nipple hasn't taken," she informed me. "Doctor would have explained how that can happen. Not enough blood supply. But don't worry, it will just slough off in the shower some time in the next few weeks, and we'll construct a new one for you from your own skin. Also, you are going to develop 'dog ears', large tags of excess skin that doctor will have to remove in another operation later on."  

Slough off in the shower. What a delightful thought. Yes I knew this could happen but doesn't everyone think "It can't happen to me"? Of course I thought it couldn't. I thought the worst that might happen would be a lot of pain. I didn't get any pain at all really. 

So one day I'll be showering and my right nipple is going to come right off and go down the drain hole. How bloody marvellous.

I am not a person who gets depressed. I am usually very cheerful. But what with the drains, no sleep, the bleeding, the mess, being unable to shower or even wash properly, being unable to wash my hair and feeling very filthy and now this, I was seriously depressed, and started to cry most of the time.

"Don't ever do this", I wanted to tell anyone who'd listen. "This is a horrible, vile, disgusting operation and you have to try and do without it."

So far, I wish I had not had it done. I find that the information on the internet, even on people's blogs, which should be straightforward and honest, is just not true, or it wasn't true for me.

Nothing I had read had painted a picture of what it would be like, the sheer horror of it all. 

Is there some conspiracy to keep the truth from public gaze? I know breast reduction is a big industry.

But I hope my blog will make people wonder if they really do need to be chopped up, or whether they could just buy a bra that will flatten them somewhat and a huge tent dress.

They sell great tent dresses in Fiji, New Caledonia and The Solomons, where ladies are meant to be big. But you can't buy them that size on the Mainland.