I Was Sent Home From The Hospital On the Very Same Day As My Double Mastectomy. And I was OK.

COVID has taken its toll on all of us. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know how hard it is hitting our health care providers and the entire health care system. It seems public health experts are trying to find the right balance between protecting the system so it doesn’t break, and ensuring that people who need medical help or attention don’t delay getting what they need.

Hospitals around the country are scaling back on procedures, some lifesaving, particularly if they require an overnight stay. There are simply not enough beds. But many hospitals and providers are taking a different approach. They no longer keep patients overnight after their procedures. This can be a daunting prospect for a patient, to be sent home the same day of their surgery. I would know. I was sent home just hours after my double mastectomy for breast cancer. It was a 6-hour procedure.

When they first told me I would go home that night, I thought it was insane.

“Is this your normal procedure?” I asked the nurse manager during my pre-op call. She said that they had started doing this just before COVID hit. And now, it’s was the only way to get people in for the procedures.

On the one hand I was thankful not to have to wait for my procedure. It was just a couple of weeks earlier I had been diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. I was anxious to have my tumor removed. But going home the same day? After such a long procedure? It was a scary thought.

I was assured that if anything did not seem right the decision to send me home could be reevaluated. With that, I consented to the surgery.

I went in for surgery around 9 AM. It didn’t finish till close to 3 PM. I woke up nauseous and vomiting. It took several different medications, and a couple of hours to control the vomiting. Once they did, and I could stand on my feet and make it to the bathroom to urinate, they called my ride to come get me. Thanks again to COVID, I was not allowed to have any family with me pre or post-op.

An hour later I was wheeled out to the curb of the hospital where my husband pulled up and I was loaded into the car, like an elementary school car pick up line. It wasn’t till days later he told me how green I looked.

By 7 pm I was home. I could barely move but I was in my own bed. I don’t know what it would have been like if had been allowed to stay the night. Perhaps it would have provided some reassurance, though I bet with a lot less sleep. Being in my own bed after a long and traumatic day with my family close by, was probably equally as healing. Maybe more so.

COVID has changed a lot of how we do things. It will be interesting to see if once we are out of the thick of it (that must be soon, right?!) we revert to our old ways of doing things. Or if we’ll embrace these new ways that we might not have otherwise considered but work and even offer some unintended benefits. Time will tell and there will be a lot to consider. But I am incredibly thankful I didn’t have to wait any longer than necessary to have my surgery.