The Drain Game

Ugh. Drains. They're not fun. Still, they aren't half as bad as some women would have you believe. They get in the way and are cumbersome when pulling pants on/off and when bathing (waist-down only allowed at this point).

Technically, I had three drains. One for my left breast area, one for my right breast area, and one for my right lymph area. I also had two intake tubes for a local anesthetic - one to the right and one to the left breast area. Here's what it all looked like:

Yes, that is a fanny pack.
Yes, I'm exposing parts of my body I'd like to keep hidden,
but this is for informational purposes, so what the heck.

I am not a fan of fanny packs in any way (even though my friend Chana claims they're handy) - except for this surgery! We hung the three drain grenades from the fanny pack with safety pins, which made getting up/down and moving around much easier. Another trick: you can also stick grenades into the inner pockets of jackets if you want to conceal them well when going out.

The picture below shows one of the drains at the insertion site - below and slightly "behind" the breast area. The drain is kept in place by a few sutures, the round sticky pad you see in the picture, and clear tape around the whole area. The point is to NOT have the drain move AT ALL. I'm fortunate: mine behaved well. 

If you're thinking drains are nice and automagic - think again! While they do work via suction to get all the blood, healing juices, flesh bits (yes - more on that later), and other goo out, they do need help. Joshua and mom did a great job stripping the drains. I preferred to sit back and enjoy the view while they did the work.

Several times a day, the grenades needed to be emptied and contents measured accurately. Once each drain produced </= 30cc of fluid a day, it was given a green light to come on out.

The grenade fluid lineup. Sexy, ain't it?