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have i mentioned that these feel and behave almost like REAL BOOBS? i could cry. i can't believe it. i'm not getting my hopes up because i know some of this is just swelling but there's fat in there that squishes first post-op appointment is friday morning.
left/top: day five, 2012 right/bottom: day five, 2017
i fucking hate this goddamn itchy compression garment posing as some magic underwear. i hate the zippers and the way it bends and creases right under my ribcage. i hate the sweet relief of taking it off and then having to put it right back on. i hate the feeling of it up my spine after a heavy night of sleep. i hate that the designer of this garment had the forethought to put a hole in the crotch so that even when i'm peeing i don't get to take it off.
for once, right boob is more...agitated and swollen!
i'm focusing on breast pictures today cause parker is out of town and i don't want to traumatize lorenzo by making him photograph my under-butt. parker is already weird, and back tomorrow so look forward to more photos of my bruisy undercarriage. it's alternately feeling just bruised and sore and pins and needles heat.
if things were to heal, basically as they are, on top and bottom, i'd be so much more satisfied with the result than i was last time. these breasts move around like real boobs, can be mooshed together, and have a weight that feels human. it's a vaguely familiar feeling, and i like it.
this is the face i make when i have to show my incredibly handsome surgeon my thighs.
i had the singular pleasure of showing my foobs and backside to not one, but three lucky souls at dr. bates' office yesterday. it's science, okay?
the nurse practitioner went over what to expect: three-ish hours of surgery with an hour of recovery in the surgicenter, pain meds & antibiotics, compression garments for six weeks at the lipo sites, blah blah blah. the lipo is gonna bruise and hurt like i've been hit with a bat. a tech took pictures of my breasts and butt & thighs. i'll have parker do the same so there are some good before and after photos for here.
dr. bates and i finalized what i'd like my end result to look like (more projection with less armpit boob) and feel like (vaguely human). he's using a brand new (yeah, i'm oh for one on the new and best boobs but whatever) cohesive, extra full implant by allergan, the natrelle inspira. (i forgot to ask how many cc these will be - the current ones are 400cc.) the fat will be grafted from my thighs. namely under my butt and between my legs (he was expressly warned not to touch the butt) and will be put all around the implant so soften everything a bit. i'm not gonna lie, this feels like a windfall. more lifelike foob, more shapely legs AND i get to stick it to my insurance? gosh, i'd trade my nipples for that.
anyway, i'm expecting the recovery to be a week or so but i'll of course be documenting the whole thing, under the influence of narcotics, if you're lucky!
the Allergan SCX - debuted January 2017. not so "natrelle" looking on a platter!
liposuction is as violent as it looks on tv. i had the rather unusual experience of being fully awake with only local anesthesia for this procedure. dr. bates told me he has only done this a couple of time with patients who a) request it be done in office b) aren't squeamish c) have proven they aren't going to freak out halfway through. i do NOT recommend this for everyone but i don't like the unnecessary risks of general anesthesia and obviously have a fairly high threshold for pain and gross. and let me tell you. it was gross. anyway, the first pictures are from immediately after. i felt woozy for the first couple of days, mostly because it's a fairly traumatic experience (jostling and jiggling and stabbing and sucking, oh my). the pain in the last couple days has been manageable. i feel like i got punched as opposed to stabbed. tender to the touch and worn out.
that syringe is as big as it looks. three stitches on the left side. hickman scar. bruising…fun!
i need to get parker to take a better front on shot. and a couple in a shirt and with a bra...
left side, you can see the old hickman scar, and that tissue area between the implant and the armpit that dr. bates was after with the lip suction. a bit of unavoidable rippling too but no issue at all with a shirt on. which it typically is… ;)
minimal scarring for such a major surgery, eh? right side especially tries to pucker into a nipple when it's cold. derp. angry left boob still looks a little odd. and hulk foobs will never go away despite stretching. this is an under muscle implant. i've learned how to scoop gelato without activating my pec muscles and freaking out customers.
first, how the fuck is this blog still about cancer, even a little bit, almost 14 years after my original diagnosis? i'm feeling a little resentful of that fact, as i typically do after my annual oncology appointments, which began with a 9 hour marathon at stanford yesterday.
actually, it really began a pamf, seeing dr. bates for my second post-op appointment. (i'm feeling too punky to photograph myself today, but i will tomorrow as it has been exactly two months since my reconstruction. in the meantime, have some fun with your own foobs and a flashlight, as danny and i did with mine last week. a nurse friend told me that this works with all implants, but since i have no pesky breast tissue to block the light, it works very well with mine. fair warming, it's a bit startling to see *all* the veins under your skin.) dr. bates is very very pleased with my final result, as am i. the right side is a little tighter in its pocket still and so i've been instructed to massage more vigorously. he asked again if i want to do anything about my nipples (or lack thereof i suppose). apparently i have enough aureola skin to reconstruct out of that but i told him i think i'll pass, at least for now. anyway, i see him in another six months.
i was a little nervous about seeing my oncologists at stanford because, as you'll recall, i completely circumvented them when i decided to do my mastectomy. i intentionally went to a breast oncologist who knew nothing of me except what she read in my (extensive) records. i was tired of being treated like a hysterical/hypochondriacal teen, instead of a well-educated woman. so, i got my bmx and scheduled my annual stuff at stanford for after everything was done. surprise! anyway, i unexpectedly had a chance to spent about 20 minutes with dr. link yesterday (he's the onc that treated me for hodgkins, but not the one who follows my long term progress). it was incredibly, incredibly cathartic and validating for me. the nurse put me in a conference room where i rubbernecked until he happened to walk by. i caught his glance and he said 'hey, what are you doing here?' waiting to talk to you. he gave me a most sincere bear hug and then stood back and said 'i heard you had sort of a big summer?' to which i am certain i winced. what followed felt how i imagine it feels to have an overbearing father tell you he loves you and is proud of you, on his deathbed, after years of trying for nothing more than to please him. 'incredible, you're ahead of the curve. you made an incredibly tough and smart decision to take control of your risk. i'm impressed. you're very strong.'
in other words, he completely validated my decision to have a prophylactic mastectomy, after i decided i didn't need or want his validation. and it felt, at least momentarily, amazing. his most recent study (and that of an oncologisy at st. judes) demonstrates that the breast cancer rates among female hodgkins survivors are almost identical to those of women with the BRCA1 gene. *jaw* that data is more discouraging than the data that i based my decision on. sadly, that means that the 'kinder gentler treatment' i received didn't really improve cure rates, or long term outcomes for hodgkins lymphoma patients. radiation is radiation and even in lower doses, (25 Gy in my case) it's both a cure and a curse. i'm posting this article in it's entirety so i can find it later. dr. link is quoted in the second half.
June 4, 2012 (Chicago) By Charlene Laino Girls treated with radiation for childhood cancers are at elevated risk of developing breast cancer in mid-life -- even if the radiation dose was relatively low, researchers say. "We were surprised to find that women treated with radiation to the chest during childhood have a risk of developing breast cancer that is comparable to that of women who are carriers of the hereditary BRCA mutations," says Chaya Moskowitz, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Moskowitz and colleagues analyzed data from more than 1,200 women treated with radiation for childhood cancers and found that by age 50, 24% had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Among survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma -- who were treated with high doses of radiation that are no longer used -- the rate was 30%. By comparison, about 31% of women who carry a mutation in the BRCA1 gene, which most doctors recognize as a known risk factor, are diagnosed with the disease by age 50, she says. Among women in the general population, the rate is 4%. Previous studies have shown that women treated with radiation to the chest as children are at increased risk for breast cancer, Moskowitz says. But this is the first study to show that risk is comparable to carrying BRCA mutations, she tells WebMD. It has also not been clear how lower levels of radiation used to treat pediatric cancers other than Hodgkin's disease affect breast cancer risk, Moskowitz says. She notes that guidelines developed by the National Cancer Institute-sponsored Children's Oncology Group recommend that women treated with 20 grays -- a dosage measurement -- or more radiation to the chest begin annual mammograms and breast MRI scans at age 25, younger than recommended for average-risk women. But the study showed that women exposed to between 10 and 19 grays are also at heightened risk and therefore may benefit from early breast cancer screens, Moskowitz says. Approximately 50,000 women in the U.S. have been treated with 20 grays or higher, and an additional 7,000 to 9,000 have been exposed to 10 to 19 grays. The findings were presented here at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). 12 Million Cancer Survivors "These are rather striking data," says Nicholas Vogelzang, MD, of the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada in Las Vegas and US Oncology. He was not part of the study. "We have an obligation to those many thousands and thousands of young women we treated years ago. Hopefully this will increase our awareness of [the] need for mammogram screening of this population," he says. ASCO President Michael P. Link, MD, says that once active cancer treatment ends, survivors typically receive ongoing follow-up care from their primary care doctors. "Patients should empower themselves and bring a summary of treatment they have received to their doctors," says Link, the Lydia J. Lee professor in pediatric cancer at Stanford University School of Medicine. He notes there are nearly 12 million cancer survivors in the U.S., up from three million in the 1970s. The work was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute.
well, it it apparent in photographs how much faster ALB is dropping! i assume (hope) that's what's making them look like they're such different sizes. had to stop taping the scars for a while because i am so flipping allergic to all the adhesives, BUT, if you aren't allergic try it! this helped them flatten so much.
