Whew!!! What a ride this year has been!! I would have to say that this year certainly may be one of the hardest of my life. 2013 tops the list. That was the year mom died, and the my sister was in the hospital in a drug induced coma while fighting for her life against pneumonia. This year has also been on for emaotional, physical, and spritual battles.
I am writing this blog as part 2 of the mastectomy blog. I wrote part one at 39 days post mastectomy. By the time I wrote that blog, I had already had another surgery. Documenting this journey is important because later I can look back at how I felt, where I was emotionally. I know that this gets easier...it's begun to get better, but still have a ways to go.
Three weeks post mastecomy, I was able to wash my own hair. It was a much slower process, but I could do it. I was thrilled to bathe myself, and wash my own hair. I bought some fancy expensive salon shampoo because I deserved a little treat, right? After a couple of washes, I noticed that my left breast didn't look so good. The skin was turning black near the incision. I texted a picture to my doctor. She said to come in to the office. Some of the skin was dying. I knew this could happen. There was many girls on the BRCA FB page that this had happened to. She put me on some high powered antibiotics. I was unable to take a real bath. I just sat in waist deep water, as my breast were not to be submerged. I was sitting there one night, taking my bath and was reading the bottles in the bathtub. One of the ingredients on the fancy new shampoo was aloe. I'm not alergic to many things, but aloe is one of them. I messaged the doctor immediately to let her know that I thought this might be an allergic reaction to shampoo and not an infection. Boom! Just like that I was scheduled for surgery. March 10th, I went to the hospital. I can't recall who was there with me, but I want to say it was Granny, Chelsea, Greg and 2 of my close friends, Loris and Anita. I went to pre-op after a heated argument in the lobby with the insurance company over my name. Always a pain to explain the reason for all the first names. I just tell people jokingly that I was born in the 70's and that my mom was on a lot of drugs so I have lots of first names. :) Anyway, I went back for surgery and chit chatted with the nurses before they gave me the sleepytime meds. One of the nurses was the same one from the first surgery. When I woke up, I felt much clearer than I did after the first surgery...this time I made sure to tell them not give me much in the way of anesthesia. I don't take any meds, so I'm super sensitive to most of them. My chest hurt pretty bad, and I felt really cold. It was not a tolerable pain. The doctor came in. She told me that they had to take more than they were anticipating. I had had an allergic reaction and my skin was dying. The expander was not affected and I was able to keep it in. She had to remove my left nipple and a lot of skin. The skin issue was not really a big deal as I was hoping to be smaller busted after all of this surgery. Before all of this, at my heaviest weight of 190, I was an E cup. At the time of the mastectomy, I was 147lbs with a bra size of DD. During this emergency surgery, they cut both sides again to make sure the same problem was not present on the right side as well. Each side was going to have to be packed with lubricated gauze, and then wrapped each day. I wasn't able to wrap myself. Lots of people came to help, and Greg was able to stay with me quite a bit and help me with tasks. I was again not able to bathe, reach up, lift, wash my hair, or bend over because my chest muscles were sore all over again. I was still sleeping in the recliner that I had purchased just before the mastectomy. I still had two drains. The drains were probably the worst part of all of it. They pulled at my skin constantly. I could always feel them. I had to pack them as well to give them a little cushion against my skin. The stiches would poke me if I moved wrong, and they are just gross to carry around with you under your shirt. I had to end up having two of the drains for 8 weeks. That's quite a bit longer than was expected, but I kept having fluid build up. Three weeks after the emergency surgery, I had my first fill in my expanders. It wasn't terrible. I was sore for about 3 days and worked from home. She put 50ccs in each side which is a small fill. Not terrible. A fill is where the doctor puts a needle through the breast and the port of the expander to strech the muscle out slowly. I would need to have several more of these.
One morning in early April, I woke up at 4am for work. My hand was against my right breast and was wet and sticy. It was dark and my immediate thought was that I was bleeding. I got up and went to the bathroom to find that it was a clear fluid. It looked as though it had been happening for a few hours based on the amount that was coming out of a tiny hole in the incision. I packed the insision and went to work. I sent a message on the web portal to my doctor. She responded fairly quickly, and wanted me to come in that afternoon. She stiched my where the small hole was. She put a waterproof wrap on it, so that I'd be able to shower. A week later, I had what would end up being my last fill. I was in a lot of pain. I was having a hard time controling the pain. Later that month, an emergency came up and I was probably not really taking care of myself the way I should have. I was pushing my limits. I was not at home for a few months after that. I was still doing photography sessions...which may have been what put me over the edge. My chest seemed to never stop cramping. I was contantly in mild pain. I was not taking pain meds so that I could drive. I was doing a ton of driving which I also probably shouldn't have been doing. The doctor decided to let me settle down with the amount of fluid that was in the expanders. Weeks later, I was sitll in pain. It was just not managable. Expanders are heavy and very hard. The material is thick, the port magnet is heavy. They poke you on the inside, they ripple, and they are just absolutely uncomfortable. Bending over would hurt tremendously because of the weight of the expanders being behind my muscle. My muscles had never had weight underneath them. It was similar to getting charlie horses in your leg...only these were on my chest. Simple tasks would cause these horrific muscle cramps.
On May 31st, I went in for my appointment thinking I was doing another fill. After examining me, the doctor decided that my body was just not doing well with the expanders and my muscles were trying to push them. We were going to go back in to surgery. I had 3 days to prep. That was on a Tuesday, and I was on the operating table Friday June 3rd for exchange surgery. At this point, I was ready to be done. There had been so many complications. The exchange surgery was removal of the expanders and placement of the permanant implants. The implants would much bigger than the expanders because we did not finish the fills of the expanders to stretch the chest muscles. I knew I'd be in severe discomfort. She was going to have to stretch the muscle when putting in the implants. The left pectoral muscle was not cooperating and needed to be cut (not sure who told me that) to fit the implant underneath. The muscle was just over worked and very thick. I had been doing photo shoots, back to work full time, driving, and household tasks. I think these things led to that muscle being overworked. After surgery, she did tell me that she could tell I was overdoing it. Maybe she didn't know what "regular life" was for me when she told me that I could get back to it.
Here I am, eight months post mastectomy and four months post exchange surgery. I still have a little bit of discomfort. The implants have settled, and aren't as stiff as they were. The muscles are relaxing and getting used to having weight behind them. Chest cramps are less often. I think it's been 2 weeks since the last one. I only have one nipple. It bothered me at first. There was a time when I couldnt' bear to see myself and I covered the bathroom mirror with wrappng paper. This wasn't just a physical challange. This was an emotional beat down. I remember the words of someone I used to care about. They said, "You're making a big deal out of this. It doesn't matter what you look like anyway, you wear clothes that will cover it. You'll be fine". Yeah? Hahaha! I have winking boobies!! I've come to think that's ok. It's kind of funny. Before I knew that I was having a nipple sparing mastectomy, I told my best friend, Nat, that we were going to go to Schlitterbahn and I was going to lose my top and start yelling "Who has my nipples?? Have you seen my nipples??" *shrugs* It's still funny.
I will eventually have both nipples. I'm not in a hurry for the left one. I have the right one. I have some feeling in both breasts. It's minimal, and kind of tingly, but it's there. The nerves are still rebuilding. I am still recovering. Monday I will go in for the reconstruction part. This is the part where she will make them look and feel more real. I want them to be more jiggly like natural breasts. I want them to look like natural breasts. I have always been blessed in the fact that I don't scar poorly. I'm only 4 months post exchange and the scars on the left are already white and thin. The right side has a little redness in the middle of the scar, but it has already begun to fade on the left side of the right breast. You have to look closely to see it. I'm so close to the end. I'm so close to being done. I have also decided that the oopherectomy is just not right for me right now. I will do ovarian scans for now once a year. There is no way to detect ovarian cancer. My OB/GYN said that the scans are better than nothing, but not a method of early detection. I'm just not ready right now. Next year may be the year, and I may wait ten years. Putting it out of my mind for right now has brought great relief. Huge.
I am thinking next year I will have her rebuild the left nipple and then I will go get my Vinnies! I blogged about that previously. If you didn't read that one then here is a link to see Vinnie's work. http://www.today.com/video/tattoos-for-breast-cancer-survivors-finding-vinnie-myers-feeling-whole-545692227516 I will just use some vacation time next year, go see some sights, and get my tattoos while I'm there.
I don't really have bad days anymore. I have moments that I am overwhelmed by all of this, but not like before. I couldn't have known that it would take so long. I couldn't have prepared for all the complications. I'm confident that God knows what He's doing and that the timing of all of this is perfect. I didn't blog much during this process just due to a lot of craziness that life brought. I'm thinking the next 6 months (ish)...life will start becoming more of what I'll be able to call normal. :)
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