Tell me my scars aren't always going to look like this

Jane, you shouldn't feel silly at all. You have been through a lot of trauma, both emotionally and physically... and suffered a loss. It's hard to look at our "new" bodies without grieving for our "old" bodies, but I think (and hope) it will get better with time. Are you planning any reconstruction? Take care, be kind to yourself, and let yourself grieve. Many hugs to you.

Janewhite: It is enough to lose a breast, but distressing to see your new body. It’s ok to care about your appearance. And you are also correct, this mastectomy also treated your cancer. It is difficult to embrace your new body even though it is life saving. Scars improve over the next months and even years. It seems to take forever but eventually it becomes you. After 8 years, I can barely remember my former self. It helped me to nurture my new self by massaging the mastectomy are with healing aloe. By touching myself and becoming familiar with how I felt. It will most likely get so much easier. I also purchased pretty undergarments that were comfortable and organic. Camisoles, etc. I didn’t push bras at all. Try to become familiar with your new self and treat yourself however you can. Be kind to yourself and patient. Women with mastectomies are still beautiful and starting to really come out in the media. Given how many of us there are, it is about time.

Jane, I do not know how skilled the wounds have been closed and I do not know how well you heal. I do know how everything that is more than just a flat even chest made me feel violated and freakish and I know that I really was ok once that angry red faded, the welts came down and smoothed out, so hopefully that will be in your future sometime soon. I like to think that gentle scrubbings with fine salt while in the bath/under the shower, and massages with good skin oils sped this process along. And if it didn't, it definitely alleviated the itching and other weird sensations while getting me requainted with my chest.

73 yrs old Bilateral mastectomy in mid-Sept 2021. Look I'm long past wanting to be a beauty queen & had no desire for reconstruction. Heard it's very painful process. Maybe if I were 30 or 40 but not now. But I have to say I'm pretty grossed out by the aftermath of surgery. The horizontal scar going across my chest is all puckered & looks like a miniature diorama of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Under my arms is a mess (only 3 sentinel nodes were taken), especially on the right side below the armpit & going around to my back. There seems to be some excess swelling & fat hanging down there that is just ghastly looking & a bunch of folds under that arm. The other arm is better but it too has excessive tissue. Yes I am not svelte but I'm not morbidly obese either. I don't see the surgeon again until sometime in December & intend to talk to him about these results. He was highly touted as an expert in this kind of surgery. Please tell me there is something can be done that is not too complicated & hideously painful to try to clean this up a little so me & my husband aren't grossed out by this hideous aftermath.

Glad your experience on reconstruction was better than a couple of my friends who said they regretted it later. I don't think I know how to find that info that everyone has at the bottom of their post that tells the details of their disease. Mine is DCIS Stage 1, no radiation or chemo