It's all about the boob...

I haven't had a chance to chat about my boob yet. TMI? So...the surgery I had was to have a tissue expander put in. I thought it was a simple cut-me-open-and-slide-it-in procedure. Not so much actually. The expander is placed underneath my pectoralis muscle and sewn in on the side. And trust me, that thing is SEWN in WELL. It feels like a brick. There's also a little corner of the bag poking out of my skin which I thought was the saline port. I was told it's just a corner of the expander/bag that will hopefully unfold as I expand. Hope so, it creeps me out and is uncomfortable! I also thought it was going to be an easy 6 months...what's the big deal? They slide the thing in, I go for 'fills' (like at a gas station), and then another surgery to put the implant in. Voila! Nope. Because of the placement of the expander, it's freakin' uncomfortable and bumpy. Apparently most women "live on pain killers" for the entire 6 months. I don't have much choice in pain killers seeing as I'm allergic to most of them except aspirin. But I've refused to take them. That wasn't so smart post surgery and even after my first fill at the surgeon's office. I'm doing OK now. Uncomfortable but there are actually moments when I don't notice its there...moments. The tissue expander gets filled with saline every 1-2 weeks until it becomes slightly larger than the other boob. This is so the tissue can expand and get prepped to have an implant placed. My first fill was  two weeks ago-100cc's and felt like someone was putting a sandbag on my chest. Lots of pressure. The patient literature calls it "tightness". They've obviously never talked to their patients. Its stretching skin that hasn't had any movement or boob on it for 3 years! You can imagine how it feels just thinking about that. But despite everything I'm experiencing, its exciting. I'm slowly decreasing the 'fluff' in my fake boob (I had to revert back to the crappy one they gave me after my mastectomy so I can decrease the size because that one is filled with batting). My man boob is starting to cause a little cleavage so it looks more like a real boob than flat with a big ol' scar. I didn't realize that this would become a monumental step or experience for me...its the final piece to putting my cancer behind me and getting back to normal. No more slapping on a prosthesis every day, worrying about whether my shirt is too low that it can be seen, or having to avoid certain clothing, and just the overall pain in the ass of it being there. But, I do need clarification from my surgeon because he looked at it and seemed a little worried that this expansion phase might not go as expected. I don't care about smaller boobs if that's the problem, just get me a boob buddy. And I don't want the other "trans flap" surgery that is 8 hours and 6 weeks of hard recovery. My next fill is tomorrow morning so I'm hoping to get my answers and feel reassured that this will work out. We watched the movie 50/50 last night which brought back a lot of the emotions around my cancer diagnosis and surgery and chemo. We both cried while reliving some of it. The movie of course doesn't show just how intense it is, or how long and hard chemo is (people aren't sitting there eating marijuana macaroons), the agony of waiting for weekly test results to tell you what it is, what stage it is, how bad it is, etc...and so much more that goes with it all over the weeks and months and years. Feeling like your life is or could be over soon? Can't bottle that emotion. But it's a movie and people don't want to leave devastated right? Ha ha. It still did the job I think. Heck, we cried. It was funny and raunchy which was good...that Seth Rogen has quite the mouth! I recommend it if you know anyone or even don't know anyone who has or had cancer. Anyway, thats the boob update. I wonder what tomorrow will bring! After that, I think there are only 2-3 more fills. Send me good, stretchy skin vibes...that sounds gross. Never mind. Just send good thoughts!