January Mastectomy

Kim, that is great that you are happy!  Love lookin at yourself lookin more normal now, right?!  I always love it when I can wear something braless and still look good where before I looked saggy without a bra.  wore a halter dress today without a bra that normally I wouldn't have worn.  And as far as size, give them time, mine seem to grow on a daily basis... just the other day I stepped out of the shower and my DH asked if they were getting bigger!  haha! LOL!   I can't wait to get my tats so they look even better... just wish I could go to one of the professionals, but I guess I'll trust my PS with that too.

I keep reading and then I don't have time to comment on everyone without taking a lot of time so I never comment thinking I'll come back later and say my fill, so I decided rather than backtracking and trying to include all of the missed stuff I have missed I'll just start from fresh each time.  

Think of you all daily and hope everyone is doing well!

Paula

Kat,  I am sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks.  I just went to the pic site to check out the tats.  My goodness....I am speechless. You look wonderful, and so 'complete'.  Complete is not the right word, but I hope you know what I mean.  Wow.

Hugs !

Well, it's official...the husband likes the boobs.  LOL.  And being the cad that he is sometimes, I think he was actually thinking about sex!  I told him NOOOOOOOO...go away.  But I'm happy that he's happy with them too.  Now I just need me some nipples and tatts, and I'll actually feel comfortable being naked around him.

I'm not sure if the bras I got are the right size.  The cup size seems to be right, but they're very tight around my rib cage.  I can definitely feel the bra constantly.  I"ll wait a couple of weeks and see how they do, then maybe go shopping again.

I have this fear that they're going to sag!  That would suck, after going through everything then ending up with saggy boobs.  Probably an irrational fear, but it's there.

I hope everyone is feeling well-have a terrific weekend!

Kim,  Have fun camping.  We love to go camping, but don't get to go as often as I would like.  

I started back to work on Monday.  It is really good to have all of my babies and kiddos back in my house.  Makes me feel like I am moving forward again, and my normal routine is returning.  That's all good, but holy cow am I tired !  I forgot how much work is involved in taking care of so many little folks and I have to wake up at 5:30am - I am soooo not a morning person !

I hope everyone has a great labor day weekend.  Mine will be spent at the soccer fields

Never Surrender !

Hey Kim!  Hope you're having fun camping, I don't think you're going to have very warm weather but if you still have the tape on that might be a good thing (as far as swimming).  Glad that hubby likes the boobs and you're right, most people don't have cleavage without the right bra.  Just go and get yourself a nice little push up bra and you'll be all about it!

Sally, the soccer fields already?  Wow!  I am not looking forward to soccer I hate to say, it's not my favorite, it might be better if we didn't have to force the kids to sign up.  They usually have fun but have to complain a little and neither are very good.... I think they get their athletic abilities from me, sad to say... oh well... they're young, they might still have a chance!

I started my new job Friday, just went in for a few hours to learn a few things before my official first day on Tuesday.  The kids first day of school and my first day on the job, talk about a stressful morning!  I spent the whole summer playing and having fun and my house shows it, so I spent all day yesterday cleaning and now my living room is spotless from top to bottom!  The rest of the house still needs help, but one room at a time!  I was cleaning cieling fans and vacuuming the walls (my DH thought I was crazy, but there were cobwebs and stuff) and I moved out all of the furniture and steam cleaned the carpet and it looks really nice.  We'll see how long it lasts!  Now I have to do the rest of the house, but not today, today is golf day!  And Race day!  Back to it tomorrow!  

Hope everyone is doing well and having a great weekend!

Paula

Paula - sounds like you had a great time.  The Jonas Brothers aren't as bad as they could be.  My daughter has outgrown them ... today we are on our way to Bumbershoot, Seattle's 3-day music, art, theater, comedy, film festival.  We have RaRaRiot, Weezer and Hey Marseilles on our list to see.  A bit different from Jonas!  I'm just hoping the weather holds up.

I finished chemo the end of June and that had to be the hardest one of all.  My hair is only about 1/4 inch long but is now very thick.  Gray and Black.  Not sure if it will get curly or not.  We'll just have to see what happens.

Hello Ladies!

I hope everyone had a really nice labor day weekend!  I had to work a little but this weekend but was off today.  Now I won't feel completely overwhelmed tomorrow like I would after 3 days off.  It's also amazing at how much you can get accomplished alone! 

Paula, how exciting for you tomorrow!  Good luck, I know you'll be awesome!  The concert sounds like such a blast...Moments of joy like that are what memories are made of

Kim, are you dropping and fluffing yet?  I think it's an ongoing process....mine seem to be constantly morphing.  Isn't the cold sensation thing wild?   I think I'm starting to seem some 'growth' in the divots from the fat grafting and the tattoos are scabbing off.  They are really going to be light.  I see him on the 17th so I'm sure he'll let me know about another inking.  I've got picures but I'm going to wait to post them I think after the scabs come completely off and then post them together.

I'm also attending an after breast cancer support group this Wed at 5:00.  It's a Q/A with one of our area's leading breast cancer surgeon...hopefully we'll cover topics like "How can you tell if you're having a recurrence?"  OMG I worry about this constantly and it's making me crazy!  I went running to the gyn for a little yeast infection and now I'm constipated so am now thinking about scheduling a colonoscopy!  My goodness...the canceritis is the worst thing about this!  I just want to walk away from knowing how to spot it.

My DH's kidney stone still has not passed!  Can you believe it?  It's going on 8 weeks. now.  We saw the urologoist last week and he has exactly 2 weeks to get this stone moving or we're doing lithotripsy on 22nd.  I'm suggesting swimming...which he used to do 3x week.  He's agreed to try it so we'll see if that can do the trick.  If they do lithotripsy, he's going to try and zap the kidney too...it's full of renal calculi as well.  I guess it all depends on how many zaps it takes to break up the stone.  They are allowed 3000 zaps a session so they if, for example, they destructed the stone in 600 zaps, they could then use up the rest of the shocks on the kidney's lower pole where it's all accumulated.  I'm just afraid of a 'gravel shower'   We are both praying that he can pass this stone on his own...then have a 24 hour urine test done so we can determine what the hell is he putting in his body to create these excess minerals and put a stop to a it!    If that doesn't clear up the problem, the lithotripsy.  <sigh>  What a year it's been!

Good to see you Sally, Brenda and BC!

Hope our team members are doing well!  Laura and Becky...you out there?

Ok... Here's to a great week!
Kat

Jumping on tonight quickly to say a quick HI.....It's been busy, being back in school, and trying to do everything one-legged.  (BTW...good to read the updates that are on here....the good and the bad.  Life does seem to be moving on for everyone, but it's good that we're not living/breathing the whole BC thing 24/7 the way we once were!)  Anyway, the pink cast was a big hit amongst my 320 K-4 kiddos, but I think they liked my knee scooter the best   The cast DID come off this past Friday, right before Labor Day, but it wasn't easy walking the way I had envisioned     I thought I was going to just get to take off and go.....but the doc warned me not to, and said I needed my crutches for two more weeks, saying I needed to build up the strength, stretching, etc....Well, we moved my oldest son into college the very next day, and you can probably just imagine the piles of things I needed to take care of since I had been unable to do much for a month....so I was on my feet WAY too much!!!  Needless to say, Labor Day - even though we were back home by then - didn't get to do much "laboring"...had to lie around on the bed and couch, resting and elevating the ankle.  Pain, swelling....argh.

Went to gyn. today..talking hysterectomy.  She was talking this *last* fall, when my mammo came back bad.  I could probably hold off a little longer, but since I've made my deductible (and almost the out-of-pocket max, too!) for this calendar year, THIS would be the time to do it.  Any of you ladies had a hysterectomy?????  Will leave in the ovaries....  Pros?  Cons?  It's not a matter of life vs. death....  I had an ablation three years ago because the lining of the uterus was so thick, so LOTS Of bleeding....but lining is growing back, and I am cramping lots (at least 4 days a week now, every week!) and it's getting worse nad will continue to get worse until menopause....which could be another 3-4 yrs.  sigh...not sure what to do....

Kat...your hubby will be in my prayers...and prayers for continued healing for all...

blessings...robin

Hang in there Kim, the size may 'improve' with time.  I remember when Paula had her reveal, she was unhappy with the size, but the drop and fluff made a big difference.

I am starting to see a little of my divot area reappearing.  bummer.  I hope all the fat grafting doesnt disappear.  Kat, how is your fat grafting area looking?

Robin, I'm glad you have the cast off.  When my daughter broke her ankle this spring, she thought she would be running around the day the cast came off - wrong !  Takes some time to build that strength back up.  She ended up going to PT for a few weeks to catch that leg and hip up.

Brenda,  good to hear from you.  It's been a while. 

I hope everyone is doing well.  We have some ladies who haven't been on for a while....I hope you stop by for a visit soon.   

Never Surrender ! 

How wonderful for you!  Have a great time!

Morning All,

Robin, sorry about your ankle....now you have to go right from that into a hysterectomy...well the good news is you'll be off your ankle!  I just hope it doesn't extend into the holidays for you.  I understand about the deductibles though. 

Sally, divots are back   I guess if there is anything he wants to do for me or to the foobs he needs to schedule it before the end of the year.  My fat grafting, I think was a waste of time so he would have to be pretty convincing to talk me into that again.  My right implant is flat (not flat like a saline implant because they're gel) but flat meaning no upper pole projection at all.  Not sure what happened there.  The left is nice even though the ripples and divots are back.  I think I should just learn to live with them for the next couple of years and see what happens.  I'm sick of surgery and anesthesia.  I'll proably have one more tattoo inking and then I can just move forward from there. 

Brenda, I bet you saw my sister at that music festival without even knowing it!  She lives on Vashon Island and has a shock of red hair!  She's pretty active in things like art fairs and music festivals.  Hope you had a nice time.

Hang in there Kim....try not to make any snap judgments on your implants just yet.  Sally is right about how change almost daily.  Wait until you get the nipples on...that will change everything! 

Congrats Debbie...you're a Rock Star!  Whoohoo! 

Everyone have a wonderful Sunday....Maybe today will be the day that the stone passes or maybe it's just going to be Mad Men day...either way, it will be good!  
Kat 

I've been lurking for quite awhile - a lot of time I don't have time to post - or can't type well enough - dyslexic fingers!  Also, not having done reconstruction, I haven't been able to relate much.  I've kept you all in my prayers, though, as you've gone through each step.  Becky, I will say one thing - I still have pain and tightness across certain areas - without reconstruction.  It may just be scar tissue tightness, jangled nerves regenerating, etc.  I'm told it will fade with more time.  But "normal" may never be in the cards. 

I'm going to ramble a bit in this next bit - be patient.  My biggest disappointment with the medical profession (in my experiences, despite having some great doctors) is that they don't seem to remember that I've never done this before - hell, the last time I had surgery was a tonsillectomy when I was 6!  I don't know what is normal, I don't know what to do, I don't know what I should report or watch out for - I'm depending on you, the doctor, the nurse, the technician, to help walk me through it and remember that I'm not a trained medical professional and that I'm new at this.  Please don't get impatient with me.  Don't treat me like an idiot.  Don't dismiss my fears.  Don't laugh at me (unless I'm trying to joke).  Tell me what to expect - as much as I can handle now, and ask me to come back when I'm ready to hear more - or refer me to resources.  Why did I have to find BC.org on my own?  The pre-surgery info would have saved us so much grief and time and stress if we had found it sooner - just one example.  OK, that is my mini-rant.

I have a story I want to share and get some feedback on, but it will have to wait for another time.  It's after 10PM and I still have to go out and buy milk.  Oops.

Take care, everyone  -Elaine

Elaine. I am so absolutely THRILLED to see you post. I've missed you (and so many of our team who haven't reported in recently.)

I, too, without reconstruction have no contribution for those of you still in the midst of those appointments, adjustments and grief...... but it is still so valuable to me, to hear what each is encountering in their own journey, so I thank everyone for sharing.

My chest is also still something of a nightmere due to the infection/seroma/LE issues. PT has been an enormous benefit to me to regain motion with my shoulder. Yoga has also been huge in my process of acceptance and mobility.

But having said all of that, I, too, am learning to live in 'chronic' pain. No fun. Less fun the longer it goes on. When I am 'stressed' IRL then I honestly register/feel the pain and nearly go down the drain. When all is chugging along nicely, the pain is just a hum in the back ground of a good day.

Learning to sort thru all of that is a continual quagmire. Tomorrow I go back to the surgeon's office to see how my seroma is dealing these months later, since the initial draining of that began.

Merry-go-round. The new normal. Roller coaster. Call it what you will. This surviving stuff is a challenge. Thank heavens we have each other.

On the flip side, thanks to each of you for offering encouragement/congratulations on my book inching it's way to printing. It is the complete "example" for perseverance and what can be done in the face of challenge. There were a million times I wanted to throw in the towel on that, but by continually making the teeniest of progress (over five years) it is inching closer to fruition.

xx00xx00xx00xx

Oh Sally!  Let me mentally slap him for you!  That's terrible.  I'm so sorry he's been so insensitive lately.  I bet you do breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves town.  I think a lot of spouses just don't know what to say sometimes, or put their foot in their mouth.  But over and over?  Not good.  Sending hugs your way from AZ.

Well, I got all the big nasty tape off today, and I have a horrible rash all around the outside of both boobs.  Really red, itchy, little pimple-like things, scaly skin...it itches like crazy!  I took a shower when I got home, then put lotion all over it.   And I'm going bra-less trying to let it breathe. 

And one other bummer...my boobs are tight, like I'm still wearing a tight bra.  I thought it was all the tape, but I guess not.  Anyone else's boobs feel tight?  Not as tight as tissue expanders, but it's a constant tightness.  Slightly uncomfortable.  I wasn't expecting that.  And of course, I didn't clue into it until I got home and took my bra off...so I didn't ask her about it.  My next follow up is in a month, so I'll have to see how they feel by then.

I asked about nipples and she said, "you need to heal first."  Aaaaargh!  I want to speed this whole process up, and get everything done before the end of the year while my deductible has been met.  Humpf.  Never been a terribly patient person...lol

Sally:  I am so sorry to hear about the home-front troubles.  The whole "sickness and health" part of the vows are tough to deal with for a lot of people when it is sickness.  I know you aren't the only one who has had problems after a serious medical crisis.  My DH's transplant center told us during pre-listing counseling and screening that a lot of marriages have problems during or after a big medical problem because one spouse just can't handle seeing the other ill.  I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

Becky:  My onco is the one that did my referral for physical therapy.  I couldn't raise my hand over my head though.  He did want me to clear it with my PS first, which I did.  If your PS won't clear you for therapy though you should wait.  If you can't get a referral and need one for your insurance, try your primary care doc.  It can't hurt to ask!