Amy Breast Cancer Fight Journal

  Week 5 of healing and I am so grateful to everyone for their support! Thank you so much for the dinners, phone calls, and emails, and even a surprise visit from out-of-town.  Friends, you all have been the best! With all of  the doctors appointments and keeping the kids going to all of their outside-classes (both curricular and extra curricular), these past few weeks have been a marathon of driving!  Thanks for feeding us.  It meant that there was one less chore for Erik to get done, in terms of driving, getting groceries and cooking.  Thank you for taking care of us! ***** It's been 8 days since the doctor gave me permission to sleep in a position other than on my back.  And I'm finally making a meaningful reduction in my sleep deficit!  Some other things that have opened up for me, in the last 8 days: I got take my first shower since my surgeries (AND WASH MY HAIR!!!).  I'm getting to raise my arms above shoulder height.  (I've lost ...

Good news! I got my last two drainage tubes removed on Tuesday!  The long hallway down which I pace, while waiting for my next appointment. One time, I got 3000 steps in while waiting. Sleep has continued to be extremely elusive by-in-large because I'm still confined by doctor's orders to sleep exclusively on my back. Because of this, I usually end up waking at about 1:30 in the morning for a couple of hours before falling back asleep.  So I think that I'm slowly turning into a sleep-deprived zombie.  On Thursday's appointment with the plastic surgeon I received a second dose of saline into my tissue expanders (read: fake boobs or Foobs).  As of Thursday I now have ~180 mLs of saline in each side.  It's weird, I think that my foobs are nearly the same size as my actual boobs were at the start of breastfeeding, last pregnancy. A word about foobs.  They are interesting.  Before the latest installment of 80 mLs they were kind of "dimply" (as the doctor de...

It goes well. I was hopeful that by yesterday's appointment I would be saying that all of my tubes were out. But my plastic surgeon really wanted me to go a few days longer with them in.  He also advised that I refrain from any immunologically risky procedures for now, since my chest wall, in trying to heal and revascularize was immunologically delicate.  So, I rescheduled my dental cleaning for later.   Thursday was also my first appointment where I got to experience getting fluids added to the expander.  It is a lot like getting an adjustment on your braces, the first 12 hours afterwards are a little annoying and weird feeling.  But it's nothing a small tab of ibuprofen can't handle.  The biggest sensations are when I go from either lying down to sitting up or vice versa. Other than that, I really can't complain. Except to wish to have the remaining drains removed. And get permission to work my arms again. And get to scratch where it is beginning to ...