Moving On from the Big C. Love, Amy: February 24, 2023: Three Weeks of Healing Done.

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 described them).  He said that the dimpling that he saw was actually good, because it indicated that the Alloderm graft was adhering well to the baselayer of skin.  Imagine if you will a crumpled up brown paper bag, that you're slowly inflating, but it's still pretty crumpled with pits & valleys, and peaks - kind of lumpy.  That's what they looked like.  Now with the additional 80 mLs, they look less lumpy, but still rather faceted.  

It's hard to tell when to "say when" with respect to the tissue expansion in part because I feel rather disconnected from them.  When I observed them in the mirror, and I don't think of them as part of me.  Sure there's the still fresh seam from the mastectomy that looks like a pretty thick rope of a scar, but because I've had c-section scars x3 I know that things will fade, diminish and "calm" down with time.  I'm not too troubled with the current look though, I figure everything will settle nicely.

Aside from the lack of sleep, the hardest thing to deal with is the first night or two following an expansion.  I can't help but think of a parallel between getting braces adjusted with a new thicker wire and getting more saline added to the foobs.  My body eventually adjusts, but at first there is a lot of tension in the skin and pressure on my pectorals.  And going from laying on my back to upright (which I still get help with because I'm not supposed to use my arms) I experience changes in the level of tension and pull on certain attachment points on my chest wall to which the graft has been surgically attached.  That is when gravity is the most noticeable.

Not to complain, but in a recent text to a friend this was my contemplation on things that I currently miss.  Things that I also currently miss:. Being allowed to raise my arms so that my elbows are above shoulder level, showers, washing my own hair (Erik tries but he's no salon), being able to put certain shirts or items of clothing on ( because the arms thing), working out, inversions, sleeping on my stomach or side, properly doing my hair ( the arms thing again), and of course properly scratching an itch (any itch, but I am especially itchy right now with a post surgery compression bra and two extra large ace bandages wrapped around my chest 24-7), & I miss my normal energy levels.