Wise Words From a Psychiatrist About PBM
Today I had a wonderful ‘visit’ with a psychiatrist. He’s helping me personally, and also helping me put together a program for women facing and recovering from breast reconstruction. Helping women like me cope with the psychological effects of recovery. It was very informative, he told me that the psychology behind the decision to have prophylactic bilateral mastectomy is very interesting. He said that it obviously shows a strong woman, a woman that is willing to face the fear and pain of the surgery and reconstruction to prolong her life. It also shows that the woman is thoughtful of her health, willing to go through the surgery and reconstruction to stay healthy instead of taking the chance that she won’t get breast cancer. It also shows that she is more concerned about having a long healthy life than she is about how she looks, and is willing to give up her breasts to live a longer life. I think this is very important for the women that are faced with the comment “it’s just like having implants”, because I think the most hurtful part of that statement ISN’T the suggestion that we won’t face more hurt or emotions or trauma than a woman getting implants, but that we are doing it because of how we want to look. Those people that say those things have no idea that we will never look like a ‘normal’ woman again, and that the size of the implant has nothing to do with replacing or making better the breasts we had prior to surgery. There is simply no comparison between our bodies before and after surgery.
I mentioned to him that many of my ‘breast friends’ seem to be going through a little depression. He explained it very well in that we put so much of our energy and emotions into getting through the surgery. We create possitive energy for ourselves without even realizing it, just to get us through, because although we have support from our family and friends, no one really knows how much it takes just to get through it. Once we are through the mastectomy and are facing the delays and trials of reconstruction, we hit a low point because we have expended so much energy getting through to the recovery, just surviving and being there for our family and friends. Although we need them, we often end up having to put on a brave face for them, and it’s just sometimes more than we can do. We fall into a depression, where we need to sleep and withdraw and recover the energy that it took us just to get through the surgery. Not to mention the grieving process, because there is a grieving process as we lose a part of our body, and it doesn’t mean we’re shallow or vain to mourn that loss.
As he explained that to me I felt a light bulb go off! That’s exactly right! And it immediately brought to mind my little break down at Scorpion Bay in Baja after finding the lump that lead to all of this. I remember being devistated, and crying and crying, not because of what I faced, but because it was the only time I felt that I could. Once I came home and started my journey for real I needed to be strong for my family. I couldn’t break down and be devistated in front of them, if i did, who would get them through it?
I think having a ‘group’ would be great. I know there are a lot of groups out there talking about breast cancer, or other types of cancer, but I really feel that my focus with my own projects should be reconstruction. And luckily he’s willing to help out as well. So now I’m putting together a little session for women in the area that are facing this journey too. I can’t wait to get started.
Coming Face To Face With My New Body
This morning started off as a normal Sunday around the house, making breakfast, enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee before the day got started. It’s Halloween, and we decided as a family to go to Grand Junction to get Jamie a costume at the last minute.
I was walking around the house in my pjs for awhile. My top was a little tight, and while looking down I noticed that without the bandages that we removed last night, my breasts were a little odd shaped. Kind of flat across the front. I pulled up my shirt to investigate and could tell that on either side of each incision there is some swelling and there are still stitches under the skin, causing the ends to pouf out a little bit and making my breasts look flat. I remember that last time I was swollen in the same places and it eventually went down, leaving a nicer round shape.
So we trekked to Grand Junction, about an hour away. We bought Jamie a hysterical chicken suit (I’m so lucky he has such a great sense of humor!) and walked around a bit. We pigged out on mall food and decided to go home.
As we were leaving the mall, we passed Victoria’s Secret. I’ve been wanting a new bra, I haven’t bought one yet, and decided it was a great way to celebrate the end of the second phase of breast reconstruction since my bandages were removed.
So I walked through VS, excited about new girly things. I picked out something without a lot of padding and in fun colors. I picked out a pretty aqua bra and a royal blue one. I thought splurging should include fun as well as function!
Although I had been measured right after the implants were put in, I still wanted to try on the bras to make sure they fit properly. I went into the fitting room and took off my sweater and bra and took a look at my beautiful new scars.
I almost dropped to my knees. I think I said “oh, no, no” out loud. I felt like I had been hit in my stomach as I looked at myself without bandages for the first time.
I was not prepared for how I look. Not even close.
The swelling has gone down a lot. My right breast looks misshappen. The scar is almost in the same place as before the surgery. Under my bresast the skin tucks under kind of like it should, but around the breast bone it’s a little odd.
My left breast scar is much higher, which I think is the biggest contributor to my shock. The scars were even when I had the expanders. The scars being so different, not symetrical, makes the whole thing look worse. Also, the skin under my left breast doesn’t tuck under like the other side. I can tell by looking that not only is the implant lower on that side, but it’s sitting differently, or the muscles are different, or something.
I think more than anything it had just been about a week since I really looked at myself. Probably since the last published photos. I’ve changed a lot since then, and the removal of the bandages revealing the mis-matched scars was surprising because last time the scars were even.
Anyway, I swallowed my sadness and tried on the bras. Covering up my breasts made me feel better. I put my clothes back on and left the fitting room, but I was still devistated.
Jon and Jamie were waiting, expecting me to be excited. I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t speak to them because I knew I would cry. I put the blue bra back, but I decided to keep the aqua one because I knew I will come to terms with this and wish I had it. I’ve always wanted an aqua bra. Jon and Jamie just stood there while I tried to pull myself together. I finally just said “I hadn’t seen myself without bandages” and cried a little bit. I paid for my items and we left, saying very little.
I always kept in the back of my mind that I am certain I made the right choice to have my surgery. I don’t regret it. But it is difficult sometimes to come to terms with how much my body has changed. I had a discussion about it with one of my nurses. She had a biopsy from the top of her breast 5 years ago. She said that even now, every time she looks at herself she is reminded of what she went through.
Ironically, while writing this post I recieved an email notification of the reply made by Eva about my “hardest” post. She is very much at peace with herself, and has wonderful words to share for all of us, and I thought it was very well timed. I wish I could be at the same place she is. I think I will be there, but I’m just not there yet.
I think I have been more upset since the implant swap because while in the expander phase I always had hope that at the end of this I would end up looking fairly normal. Each step of the way, as I’m closer to the end, I realize there is a large chance that won’t happen. I think I’m now mourning the loss that I was working so hard to deny before.
It will get better. It’s not that bad. I was just not prepared for the sight that awaited me today. I’ll get through this, it’s just a silly part of my body that no one sees anyway, but I’m learning I’m not as invinsable as I thought.
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:
1 Day Post Op with Drains
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…
Before Mastectomy
Expanders After 9 Months
Implants 5 Days Post Op
Before Mastectomy
Expanders After 9 Months
Implants 5 Days Post Op
Before Mastectomy
Expanders After 9 Months
Implants 5 Days Post Op
Before Mastectomy
Expanders After 9 Months
Implants 5 Days Post Op
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.
From a Foggy Mind
Well, I’m home from both California and from my implant swap. There is so much to update, especially about my race, but I’ve been either on the road or in doctor’s offices every day since the race last weekend and now with a foggy head I’m afraid I’ll either ramble more than usual or forget important details about the race. I will do a post soon all about the Powder Puff, and sharing photos, but right now my focus is on my implant swap.
We headed to Denver at 4:30 yesterday morning, my surgery started at 7:30. I sat down with the nurse first, went back over the plan of attack. They had ordered 3 different implant sizes for me…350cc, 375cc, and 400cc. They planned on opening my incisions, removing the dreaded expanders, and then inserting one of each size, sit me up (while asleep) to see which ones looked better and fit properly. I told them to start with the 400s.
Let me explain a little so that I don’t look like a complete bimbo about my chest. Before finding the lump last year I was finally, for the first time in my life, happy with my body. Figures, huh? When I sat down with my plastic surgeon and discussed options I decided to go with expanders instead of the DEIP flap because I didn’t have enough abdominal fat to recreate a breast the same size as what I had. I know that sounds vain, but I didn’t want to go through a 6 month recovery and end up with a very small chest. Going with expanders meant more surgeries, but a faster recovery. With a DEIP flap you can never go bigger, you can’t get larger implants later. But with expanders and implants you face possibly having multiple surgeries over your lifetime because implants fail. Anyway, I liked the size I was before surgery, and didn’t want to end up smaller. I also wouldn’t have minded being bigger. Not like Pam Anderson, just a little rounder to match my round hips. I want to be an hourglass, no longer a pear.
For you guys out there, or women that have lived through breast augmentation, a 400cc implant is very large for augmentation because there is still a breast on top of the implant. For women like me, it’s not augmentation, or a boob job, the implant is the only breast we have. No tissue, no fat, just muscle over the implant to recreate a breast instead of adding to the shape and volume of a natural breast.
Meeting My New Boobies
At my pre-op appointment on Wednesday I asked if I could see the 400cc implant, I had not seen them before. So my nurse retrieved on for me and I was totally bummed out. My surgeon keeps telling me that I want smaller, and I keep telling him I want larger. But by Wednesday we were at the end, no more time or room for a larger implant. Hindsight, I should have talked about it more. But I didn’t, and now it’s over.
The surgery went well. I don’t remember much about waking up. Actually, I’m trying hard to remember anything at all and I cant. Oh, wait, I remember I kept telling them I didn’t want to puke on the 3 hour drive home over the mountains, so they kept giving me anti-nausea meds. I was feeling urpy as soon as I woke up. Jon says I was up and walking and talking coherently, but I don’t remember that at all. I remember stopping just past the Eisenhower tunnel to walk around, trying to prevent another round of blood clots. Best of all, I do remember Jamie standing at the door waiting for me when we got home. He doesn’t like to talk or think about all of this, but he does suck it up and he’s there for me when it counts.
I’m not sure what time I got home, but once I was settled Jon sent out texts to let everyong know I was home and ok. I am trying hard not to take pain meds, or just take them at night. I was pretty loopy yesterday, but haven’t had meds so far today.
It is amazing how much softer my chest is now. It almost feels real. I expected the muscles over the implants to be hard and that the breasts would feel abnormal to the touch because of the muscle. But so far that’s not the case. It’s very strange to go from rock hard back to soft again. It’s a nice feeling.
I do have drains. I hate drains. But these aren’t as bad as last time. Last time they pulled on the expanders and caused unbelievable pain. These aren’t too bad. I did get my hand stuck in the loop of one last night while sleeping. You can bet that woke me right up! But other than that the drains are ok.
I do hurt a lot when I move, so I just try to to move. I would say the pain with drains and expanders was 10+++, with expanders after drains removed about 8, and my pain today with implants and drains is about a 7. But I think I heal better without pain meds, so I’ll just lay low for a few days. My drains get removed on Wednesday.
It is easier than the first surgery, but I am painful, and a little disappointed in the size. I don’t think I’m as large as I was, and not as large as I had hoped. We still have fat grafting to go through, but I don’t see that as adding to the size. But we’ll see. I’ll have that in December.
Compression Bra and Drains
Drain on Right Side, Folding of Implant Can Be Seen As a Lump Under Drain Bulb
1 Day Post Op with Drains
My doctor will be trying to even out the shape and height with fat grafting. You can see one side is still higher than the other. But as my doctor says, breasts are sisters, not twins.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy, and relieved that my cancer risk is so low now. I am happy with my choice to do this surgery, and feel like a huge weight has been lifted now that I don’t need MRIs every six months. Maybe I’m a little down because I’m still loaded up with drugs from yesterday. The last 2 months have also been like a whirlwind for me, working 3 jobs and trying to prepare for the Powder Puff. Now the race is over, I’m back in Colorado, and I can’t get back to my retail job until after November 1st. So I’ve gone from full out busy to laying around recovering, and I’m not the laying around type. So be patient with me, I’m sure I’ll be more upbeat soon.
Thanks for all of the supportive emails, texts, and calls. It’s wonderful to know I’m not alone! I’ll check in again soon, right now I’m feeling a nap in my immediate future.
Notes From A Stressed Out Mind
Hmmmm, it’s been a crazy week. Ha! I guess it’s really been a crazy life, but let’s just talk about the recent days.
All of a sudden, Courage is growing rapidly. We should reach 50,000 YouTube views by June 1st, and 100,000 views in August. We now sometimes hear from several women a day, and that is the best news of all. I have also found some pretty amazing women myself, and my wheels are turning in my mind about ways to make them part of my Courage Vision.
Details About My Surgery
I’m so sorry about the audio, I was speaking softly so that my son wouldn’t overhear and get upset. Please turn your speakers up if needed.
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