Wide Excision

I still don't know as much about the procedure as I would like, but here's what I know about what is going to happen so far:
They are going to remove essentially my entire armpit - from the top of my breast to the top of my armpit (so about 4 inches long by 3 inches wide) and remove skin from my thigh (the "donor site") to graft onto it. The dressing will be initially stitched on to give the graft the best possible chance of taking. I'm going to be staying in for about 4 days, and after that will have to travel there 3 times a week for dressing changes (I did ask if I could have that done more locally - but apparently as the graft only has a 50% chance of taking they prefer to do it themselves as they are highly specialised)

I will not have much mobility at all for the first couple of weeks (and will probably be off my head on pain meds) - the surgeon has told us that I will not be able to care for the kids by myself for at least that long. Total recovery (or recovery enough to function normally) should take about 8 weeks if the graft is successful, longer if not.

So that's the technical stuff - as for how I feel about it all that's up and down. Of course I'm happy that something is being done at last, but I'm also very very scared. I'm scared about the pain, about the sheer horror of it and I really really don't want to be away from kids for so long. I'm worried about money (8 weeks at least with only sick pay, plus it will cost £16 a time to travel there and back for my dressing changes) but mostly I hate the thought of being alone in hospital and hardly seeing my kids (it's an hour there and back so it wouldn't be fair to drag them there and back every day) or my hubby for several days.

I would like to just go to sleep and wake up in september when it's all over please!!!!