four weeks post-op

haven't had a fill since last photos, won't until friday. things sort of seem to 'settle' in between expansions, look a little smaller perhaps? it's hard to tell. i was measured at a 32C at a lingerie shop this weekend but the projection isn't really that much, just wide... right side looking a bit pucker-y and vein-y. looking back at pictures from a couple of weeks ago i CANNOT believe the improvement in ALB. the damn corners are the worst part! under-scar looks good. i hope they will look that good after the exchange. there is just no way to show the damn corners...

mike says my right nopple is smug; i can't say he's wrong about that now can i?

this is what geneticists actually do in their spare time. thank you, as always, dr. clark.

the one where i'm stealing wifi outside my grandparents' house while they're out of town to avoid going home - in my defense, their yard is amazing

i'm under the (probably) false impression today that my new breasts will make me unstoppable in every aspect of my life (the *perfect* ones i will have, not these rocks). i'm vacillating between exhausted and stupidly over-the-top confident. my sense of time is alternately stretching and contracting. my surgery was a little over three weeks ago and it feels both an eternity and yesterday. i'm shocked that i'm so incredibly mobile and energetic a lot of the time. i'm frustrated that ALB isn't healing like the other side and i can't swim. i'm mystified that not a single one of my bras fits and it's not just for un-smooshability reasons. i'm over-sharing with neighbors, a lot. i have a major crush on my plastic surgeon (who has a wife named celeste and a daughter named parker, no kidding.) i feel like i'm in the middle of some hormonal revolution. still having memory problems and the occasional meltdowns but it's balanced out with naps and physical therapy wherein my PT tries to murder me through massage of my armpits.

speaking of armpits, i can feel my pec muscles stretching there but not so much across my chest. ants crawling under my skin sensation in/on my breasts/pecs/idunno very once in a while. itching on the inside, if that makes sense. absolutely zero sensation to touch or temperature on my skin. dr. bates had me ice the left side and i watched the ice melt from the heat of my skin but i could feel nothing except some referred sensation down my arm to my fingers. bizarre. pain in my ribs once in a while where the expanders are poking me still. i can hardly stand the time between expansions. it's a relief actually. physically and emotionally.

what a difference a week makes

150 cc's in each side now. left boob is still trying to sneak away it looks like. pretty okay looking?unless i flex my pecs and then you can totally tell the muscles are on the outside! ack! ALB is looking more and more like scabby left boob. brown pigment will not be coming back to this areola because of how it's healing buuut,  my stitches came out! please ALB, take notes from this nice well rounded right boob.  the nopple area is a little frowny but oh well. wait, no. mike says it looks smug. i like that better. close up of the right nopple. better is...better. heather, are brownish scabs better than white?side view - you can still see the pokey-outey corner but those will diminish during the fills over the next few weeks, i hope.

expansion #2

as you can see this doesn't hurt one little bit. 

money money money money moneeeyyy

• standard mammogram: $708
• MRI mammogram: $4, 455
• semi-private room: $16,794
• drugs - general: $453.44
• supplies - non-sterile: $146
• supplies - expanders: $17,500
• operating room services: $38,566
• anesthesia: $8,528
• drugs: $992.13
• recovery room: $9,136

THAT'S $97,278.57 NOT INCLUDING DOCTORS.

don't ever ask me again why i am all for obamacare, pleaseandthankyou.

wash, rinse, repeat

so apparently i've been having some transient global amnesia since my surgery. it's fucked up how little i remember since the 8th. at first i thought it was because of the oxy/perco and valium but i've been off of those for days. (that said, the oxy is apparently what was giving me nightmares, remind me to tell you the one about being in an afghani marketplace and having a woman swallow and regurgitate garden snakes - or not). here's what i found from a study that was actually pre-released the day of my surgery. ha!

Transient global amnesia is a neurological syndrome in which there is a sudden and brief inability to form new memories, as well as an intense retrograde amnesia. However, awareness, personal identity and attention remain intact. It is an uncommon condition seen after an anaesthetic procedure. There are several aetiopathogenic hypotheses (epileptic, migrainous or ischaemic origin) and triggering factors (pain, anxiety, temperature changes, exercise, Valsalva manoeuvres, diagnostic tests or certain drugs). We describe the case of a patient with a high level of pre-operative anxiety who suffered an episode of transient global amnesia after undergoing otolaryngology surgery. With an acute and continued amnesia after general anaesthesia, the first thing that must be done is to establish a suitable differencial diagnosis, which should include transient global amnesia, as this is mainly an exclusion diagnosis. Preoperative anxiety may be a triggering factor to take into account in this condition, with anxiolytic treatment prior to the surgery being important.

in other words, is that it's totally likely that if we talked or saw each other in the past few weeks i don't remember. oops. in that case, if you didn't bother to see me, just lie! :D at least they stay where i put them in a swimsuit. now if that damn fluid would go down in my pits...