Tag Archives: Mastectomy

Calling for bra donations!

Attitude is everything

Attitude

Yes, THIS. I have hit a pretty huge speed bump on my road to being finished. A major setback that’ll add at least three more months to this process. When I had my prophylactic bilateral mastectomy in January, I expected to be finished by mid-summer. HA! It’s almost January again! Yes, I’m devastated and angry, but there really isn’t anything I can do about it now except focus on recovery and what’s ahead of me.

Attitude really is everything. While you cannot always control what happens to you or around you, you have complete control over your reaction to it. I have chosen to continue to be positive, because the alternative won’t help anyone or improve my situation.

Good news x 3

I saw Dr. M for a follow up on Friday.

The Lone Drainger is out! Whoop whoop! I was producing less than 15 mL/day.
Culture results are good and show no signs of infection. This doesn’t mean I didn’t have one, it means that the antibiotics I have been on since Monday are working.
I might not have to have a tissue expander!!! Dr. M thinks the tissue won’t retract so much that I would have to start all over. If all looks good in a few months, he will place the implant via a small hole in my armpit using the TESSA technique (Transaxillary Endoscopic Subpectoral Smooth Augmentation). This was the best news! It also means that we will NOT have to mess with the incision/scar again.

Race for the Cure

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Team FORCE

On October 12, 2013 I will be participating in the a local Race for the Cure event. I have joined Team FORCE and will be walking (nope, not racing) in memory and support of our loved ones who have battled breast cancer AND to help raise hereditary breast and ovarian cancer awareness. I am stoked to be participating in this event and hopefully meet more women like me right in my own back yard!

As most of you already know, FORCE: Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (www.FacingOurRisk.org), is the only national non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. People like me.

We are going to have a ton of fun at this event. Teal and pink paraphernalia WILL be involved. I got some teal knee high socks and a pink afro wig. Pics to come … I promise. Our team is already at 28 participants and we have only been at it for a little over a week! We currently have seven corporate sponsors with more on the way!

One of our sponsors is my friend who is an Origami Owl Independent Designer. She will be donating 20% of sales (pre tax and S&H) to FORCE! How OWLsome is that? HOO is going to help us out and order an Origami Owl locket? There are four pre-designed breast cancer related lockets (see below) or you can create your own, as I did. Mine arrived on Friday and it is so awesome! I ordered a locket with five charms (pink heart with wings for my sister who died from BC, teal ribbon for my mom undergoing treatment for OC, LOVE for the rest of my family, girl cat for my two furbabies, and a G). I also ordered a charm for another necklace. Aren’t they really cute?!? If you are interested in supporting FORCE and getting some great jewelry, visit our designer’s website and make sure to select Team FORCE Fundraiser at checkout: http://MartineNuera.OrigamiOwl.com.

From the other side

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Thank you to everyone who sent their love, support, and best wishes for today! The exchange surgery was a piece of cake! Nom nom. 🙂

We started just after 9am and I was on my way home by 2pm. Dr. M removed my tissue expanders and replaced them with silicone implants. I didn’t see him post-op, so don’t know yet what projection and volume I ended up with. They are definitely smaller than the expanders and are not all the way up to my collar bones. Woo hoo! I haven’t messed much with the dressings and plan on leaving this up to Dr. M.

On the pain scale, I’m at about 2. Really feeling good. I took Norco, stinky antibiotics, and some Arnica Montana to help fight inflammation and bruising as soon as I got home and ate something. This time around the nurse gave me an anti-nausea, behind-the-ear patch. I do have terrible dry mouth, though, so I’m drinking lots of water and eating cough drops like candy. This also means frequent trips to the potty.

I am sporting a sexy hospital-issue bra and an ACE bandage as you can see above and dealing with two drains. Yes, this happened. The tubes exit my armpits causing me more discomfort than the chest pains! Once again they are the giant hemovac type reservoirs. I have a follow up appointment Wednesday afternoon, during which the drains are supposed to be removed. Less than 24 hours to go!

Headlights

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WARNING: NSFW / graphic content below.

So this little trick popped up in the Facebook groups. Did you know that if you hold a flashlight to a boob with an expander or an implant, it will glow? Yes, yes I did try this myself. Gives a new meaning to HEADLIGHTS! The left is the image from i-am-bored.com circulating the groups; the right is my version. You can see the shade of the expander port in the top of the image. Creepy!

Show me the goods!

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Only two weeks to go until my exchange surgery! I am so excited. Can’t wait to be on the other side of this thing. I’m looking forward to being finished. I report to the hospital at 7:30am, for a 9:30am surgery, on Tuesday, September 3rd.

Pre-op appointment

Met with Dr. M this afternoon for my pre-op appointment. Discussed a few more details, got my pictures taken, signed the familiar consent forms, got the don’t-take-these-meds sheet, had my blood drawn, and peed in a cup.

Here are a few of my final questions:

Will I be required to wear any type of bra (compressions or underwire) after the exchange surgery? Should I purchase something? No. If any type of compression is needed it will be via ace bandage and dressings or a mastectomy bra that will be issued by the hospital.
I have hypertrophic-ish spots on my incision scars from the mastectomy, should I use something special after the exchange to prevent this from happening? The lumpy scar tissue will be removed during the exchange surgery. Since the pockets are already created/expanded, there won’t be as much stress on the incisions going forward. Silicone sheets? That’s an option that will apply pressure to the incisions to keep them flat. We will revisit once they close.
What about this ugly, scarred tissue from the area that was necrotic? Depending on how much skin is loose/available after the implants are placed, we may be able to remove the chunk now. Otherwise, a skin graft from the hip area is an option, but that would need to happen at a later time.
And the most important question: will I have drains again? Yes. That wiped the smile off my face. Noooooooooooo! I was hoping I would never see a surgical drain again.

For my photo session today, I removed everything except my underpants. This is the third set of full body pics we’ve taken, but it was still weird. While standing on a pedestal I was thinking of this XKCD strip Lannis shared a little while ago and giggling. Where are my beads? I earned them!

Source: xkcd.com

So what size are you?

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It’s strange how often I have heard this question. Yes, I had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy, and yes, my boobs seem to be growing right before your eyes, but this question is not appropriate for watercooler chat. We’re not that chummy! How would you like it if I asked your wife her bra size? Kind of weird, no? Apparently not. If I had a Dollar …

The times I actually did answer this question, the only measurement I had was the volume in ccs. Unless you’re one of “us,” this don’t mean jack, so after yet another time I fielded this question, I decided to go on a quest and figure out exactly what the magic number was.

How I measured my cup size

A lot of women make an appointment for a fitting by someone who knows what they’re doing (usually Nordstrom lingerie department). I have not yet taken this step, because I’m not completely finished. Off to Google and the FaceBook groups I went. There seem to be a few different ways to do this. One of the ladies in a FB group, who is familiar with the topic, was happy to assist.

Source: Jason Lee, RealSimple.com

Without a top, I first measured the underbust, which is the lower yellow line in the graphic = 29″.

Traditional sizing says to add 4″ if even number or 5″ if odd number. Modern sizing rounds up to the next even number. We went with modern sizing, so that brought me to 30.

Then I measured at the top yellow line, which is the widest part of the bust = 36″.

The math: subtract the underbust from the bust. The difference is what determines size, with each inch representing one cup size. 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our verdict: 30 DDD. Yes, that’s right D D D. I was shocked when we came to this conclusion. I still am. I was not expecting this at all. Having been wearing an A cup bra pre-op, triple Ds just seem ridiculous to me. I never had a number or letter in mind when thinking about reconstruction. I was of the mindset that I would keep expanding until things seemed just right. I hit that point at about 400ccs. Having read a lot of feedback of women feeling that they should’ve gone bigger, I told my plastic surgeon that the sweet spot was 450ccs. Since I’m getting round implants, we overfilled by 100 for a total of 550ccs. It’s at the overfill point that I measure a DDD, so this isn’t the final FINAL verdict. I will get a professional fitting a couple of months after my exchange, once things settle down. Stay tuned!

Here’s an interesting graphic related to cup size. A 30F on me is a 38C on someone with a larger ribcage/underbust. It’s all about body size and proportion.

Cup size and proportion

Lumbergh

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So this will never happen for me, with only one nipple and all, but I still laughed! Another gem from Imgur. #mastectomyproblems

Lumbergh

Done, DONE, D O N E – ninth expansion

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WARNING: NSFW / graphic content below.

I am officially finished with the expansions! YES! We added the final 25ccs to each expander, for a total of 550ccs/side. I am so ecstatic to have reached this milestone. I was really hoping to be completely done late Spring/early Summer, but my rebel nipple Dusky and his pal necrosis had other plans. Six months after my prophylactic bilateral mastectomy on January 22, 2013, I am finally done with fills! This is what I’m doing right now:

What’s next?

7/31: follow up to make sure I haven’t decided that I want to go bigger
8/19: pre-op appointment
9/03: the long-awaited exchange surgery!!!

That’s a lot of fills!

100 + 50 +75 +75 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 25 + 25 = 550ccs

Eighth expansion

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WARNING: NSFW / graphic content below.

I can almost smell it: the end of the expansion process. This was supposed to be my final expansion, however I wimped out and we only added 25ccs to each expander, for a total of 525ccs/side. The goal is 550ccs, so I have another appointment for the final FINAL expansion in one week.

Gravity The reason for halving the volume is pain. The last expansion brought on a lot of pain. Not that I thought it was going to get more pleasant, but it was pretty bad. As usual, the worst of it come early in the morning. I’ve never dreaded getting out of bed so much. As soon as I sat up, gravity would work its magic. Talk about grumpy mornings.

The pressure was intense and I was on ibuprofen for about three days after. It didn’t help that we spent that weekend camping, so I was not sleeping in my own comfy bed. I really thought if someone poked me, a foob would pop. I even had a dream that my cat sat on my chest and the thing just blew up under her. Not like a slow deflation, but a violent explosion! I woke up in a sweat and immediately groped my chest to make sure everything was still there. Whew!

Enjoy the pics. It’s getting crowded down there!

100 + 50 +75 +75 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 25 = 525ccs