THEY’RE CALLED “Drive-By Mastectomies” for the ghoulish reason that the procedure is likened (for haste) to ordering take-out food from the window of a fast-food establishment. Quite simply, it’s a medical procedure performed in a hospital setting, mandating a mere overnight stay: The breast-cancer patient is admitted, amputation of the breast is performed, and patient is released from the hospital, usually the next day, as if she (some males fall victim, too) had minimally invasive root-canal. If there are complications, she may be allowed more time, but those instances are the exception. My own experience saw me be hospitalized for only 48 hours, despite a horrific sequence of events.

Almost five years ago, following a mammogram, I was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (in layman terms, abnormal cells develop throughout the ducts; they will doubtless morph and find their way out, only to become full-blown cancer). My surgeon recommended a mastectomy, and because the board at Rhode Island Hospital reviews decisions such as these, I knew her diagnosis was accurate.

On Feb. 6, 2003, my general surgeon excised my breast, while my plastic surgeon inserted an expander, in preparation for his ultimate reconstruction surgery, to be performed later. These two often perform these tandem operations, and I was only too happy to get this dual procedure done at the same time. The operation from start to finish took about seven hours.

But, in the recovery room, I awoke groggy, feeling the weight of a giant anvil on my chest. I couldn’t breathe for the pressure, and I remember calling out, “I’m sick. . . . I’m going to vomit.” This brought about an immediate flurry of specialists all trying to determine if I were in the throes of cardiac arrest. In blinding pain, I wretched, straining newly-placed stitches, while cardiologists strapped me to machinery. I knew their concern: “Was my 57-year-old heart reacting adversely to a punishing round of anesthesia and surgery?” We awaited the round of enzyme tests from the lab, the ones that would definitively show whether I had, indeed, suffered cardiac arrest.

Two hours later, I was medically cleared. The conjecture was: My body had reacted adversely to anesthesia. But because my recovery had been a tense, uncertain time, I was assigned to the Intensive Care Unit. I remember half-waking to tall towers of blinking lights, and heard the hum of electric monitors. I felt claustrophobic, as the banks of machinery rose all about me, but I continued to drift in and out of consciousness. Patients seemed to be everywhere where there wasn’t a machine, but none of us interacted. We were simply a village of the damned.

I remained in the ICU from Feb. 6 to Feb. 8, 2003, when, sometime in the early morning, staff wheeled me to a room in Rhode Island Hospital, where a lone male was the occupant. I admit to having been perplexed; I thought it bizarre to be placed with a man. Apparently, my roommate was a diabetic who had lost his lower limbs. I only know this because, upon my younger daughter’s arrival, early the next morning, she whispered (after she’d overheard his medical problem), “Mom, it’s like you’re on the Island of Misfit Toys.”

A few hours later, that same morning, staff came in to ready me. When I asked where I was going, they cheerily answered, “You’re going home.” So this woman who had undergone a seven-hour combination surgery of amputation with insertion of expander, a woman who was assigned the intense scrutiny of ICU for some 36 hours, was now judged fit enough to be released to whatever caretakers she could muster, because these were, ostensibly, the rules by which the insurance industry and hospitals abide.

On Feb. 8, 2003, I was wheeled out the exit door and onto the curb, in front of the hospital and wished “Good luck,” a grueling 48 hours after I’d arrived. I had drains in place and a booklet of information, telling me how I should manage my home care. I was told that a visiting nurse would come by my house the next day and for several days following that. But I marveled at the brutality of a medical bureaucracy that could be so callous.

This was my experience five years ago. There is little difference today. Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s pre-authorization department (which approves procedures and time allotted for hospitalization) states one to three days is considered the window of hospitalization for this procedure, with each case supposedly reviewed on anindividual basis. I was further told that if a patient doesn’t have trouble understanding protocol with the drains, she is sent home the day following surgery.

Finally, if you think you’re immune to such barbarism because you’ve got excellent insurance, think again. As a retired public-school teacher who logged 30 years in the classroom, I thought I had the best health insurance around. I’d discover, in the end, it is how the insurance industry interprets the benefits that makes the difference.

In recent years, there have been sporadic attempts to change this policy, but, to date, these have been fruitless. What will it take? When enough families witness a sister, mother, wife or daughter on that hospital curb, another unwitting victim of drive-by mastectomies, there may finally be a groundswell of support needed to effect change.

But, rather than wait for the above, I suggest now is the time to make your wishes known to the insurance and medical industries. The need is pressing and urgent: Patients who undergo mastectomies must be afforded the same time or hospital recovery as that allowed for other major surgery.

Colleen Kelly Mellor is a free-lance writer who divides her time between Rhode Island and Asheville, N.C. ( ckmellor@cox.net).