The Hardest Post I’ve Ever Written – GRAPHIC CONTENT!

 

Let me start by making sure you know I’m not writing this in a sour or bitter tone at all. I just thought it was important at this stage to be very honest about how I’m feeling one week after my 2nd step of reconstruction. I have reduced my risk of cancer from 40% to less than 2%, and if nothing else I have given myself a chance to live. There is nothing more powerful or profound, and I am thankful for that chance. I am thankful to no longer be afraid of my body. But it’s not an easy journey.

Tomorrow will be one week from my implant swap. Almost 9 months to the day from my mastectomy surgery. And one year since my first Baja trip that changed my life on many different levels.

It staggers my mind to think of how much has changed since one year ago, 9 months ago, and even one week ago.

I lost a job that I love, friends that I love, and a body I was at home with. But I have gained a purpose, new friends, and a new outlook on life.

But let me say that I do miss my friends, lost for different reasons along the way. I know sometimes you still read my blog, so know I miss you and still love you.

It took a few days for me to get fully back on my feet. If I had an office job, I could have gone back to work today. I look forward to going back to work soon, I’m feeling a little stale in my brain.

The difference between expanders and implants is impossible to fully describe. I am going to do a video soon, and I think that will do a much better job of showing how dramatically different they are. But I’m not ready to do the video yet, but I do have photos to share.

Breast expanders are very hard. They are odd looking. They make you feel freakish, and if you don’t have a sense of humor you might cry a lot. You learn to joke about poking people and not feeling it, having foobs, titanium boos, frankenboobs, grapefruits, basketballboobs, barbie boobs…really the jokes can be endless.

But the reality is that having breast expanders is difficult. It’s hard on your body, but it’s also hard on your mind, spirit, and sexuality. You lose nerve endings not only in such a large portion of your body (collar bone to mid ribs, armpit to armpit), but also in an erogenous zone. Graphically speaking, your breast are scooped out, burned out, and then replaced with extremely hard plastic balls that you voluntarily go and have enlarged over a period of months.  In some cases, like mine, your nipples are removed and discarded like trash.

Just when you’re healed, and have sort of come to terms with your body you get to do it all over again…remove the expanders and place implants. Your implants are called ‘high profile’ so that they stand out like a ‘normal’ breast instead of laying flat to boost breast tissue as in a normal augmentation.

I had a lot of complications after my mastectomy surgery and with the expanders. My complications are documented throughout my blog and videos so I’m not going to go through it again, but I also had it easy compared to some. My friend Teri…that’s a story that will break your heart. So it could have been worse, and I’m thankful that many of my friends had it much easier. All of our stories are a little different.

My implant swap went without a hitch, and I seem to be healing well. I have an appointment for my next surgery after Christmas. I will be having my first session of fat grafting and the first stage of nipple reconstruction. I had not decided fully on nipple reconstruction until a few months ago. As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do it. My breasts were looking so freakish, why make it worse by trying to put a fake but normal nipple on them? But now that I can wear bras again I think that looking at myself and seeing a nipple will help me heal. On the inside.

I know my post right after my implant swap was pretty optimistic (which I always try to be), and I even posted a reply a few days ago that I thought one day no one would be able to tell that I had such a radical surgery. Well, I’m not on drugs anymore and so I would like to say I definately had on rose colored glasses when I wrote that. But let me be fair, I have no idea what things will look like after fat grafting and nipple reconstruction, and Jon keeps telling me to be patient (if you know me, you know this is something I hear all the time because I AM NOT PATIENT!). So we’ll see.

And of course I will show you. 

But as of right now I am in some ways thrilled and in other ways totally devistated.

I am thrilled because I’m so soft! My skin feels differently, my body feels like it did before surgery. I did a video where I poked and pounded on my chest to show how hard it was. I could never do that now. Now if I poke, everything moves! My skin is soft. My breasts are soft. I can lay in any position and sleeping doesn’t hurt. 9 months of pain and freakishness are gone. And it is a huge relief.

I am devistated because I still look weird. My plastic surgeon was kind enough to give me their photos from right before my mastectomy surgery and also from right before the removal of the expanders. I have taken photos from 5 days post op of the implant swap (when the expanders were removed and the implants put in). These photos show you how I looked when I was a real girl, how awkward and strange expanders are, and what I’m like right now. I would like to point out that the photo posted a few days ago is no longer accurate, I had a lot of swelling and the size and shape of my breasts has changed a lot. I kind of liked those boobies. But they left me too.  This is the photo I’m referring to:

So here we go with the full, unedited version of what a body goes through during mastectomy and reconstruction, at least to this point. I received the photos of my pre surgery body just yesterday and it broke my heart a little bit. I didn’t have any photos, I didn’t take any before surgery for myself.  So take a deep breath…

So there you go. Please don’t misunderstand my post, I am thankful, and happy. But I don’t believe there is a person out there that could go through this type of change without some feeling of loss. I know many people find my blog looking for answers and insight about their future and so I want to be honest and open about how I feel and what I’m going through. I couldn’t find the information I needed before surgery and so I created this site and blog and I promised to hold nothing back.

Don’t feel badly for me, I have taken control of my future as much as I can and taken steps to save my life. It’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful choice. But it’s not without difficult moments. But I will take the difficult moments and pain and discomfort to have a longer life, and to hopefully spare myself the pain my mom has gone through for so long. And if you are on this journey too, I wish you the best and offer all of the encouragement I can.

Thank you to all of my readers, the silent ones and the vocal ones. It makes all of the difference in the world to know I’m not alone.

October 22, 2010 | Categories: Full Blog, Medical Updates, Personal Updates | Tags: bilateral matectomy, breast expanders, breast implants, breast reconstruction, changing a life, help others, mastectomy, reconstruction | 43 Comments »