TMI Alert

I hesitate to share this much info, but I am a teacher to my core and if even one person is curious, would benefit from this information or has to travel this shitty path and this helps them, so be it.  With the caveat repeated to me over and over again, everyone's diagnosis and plan is different.

Healing.  Wednesday will be 3 weeks since surgery.

I am feeling so good.  My armpit pain is less, I notice it the most when applying deodorant...and thought yesterday that perhaps aerosol deodorant is what I should have purchased.  Then I remembered my dad's demonstration of aerosol and fire when I brought home a can of hair spray in high school, and decided I'd suffer through the discomfort- lest he think I didn't listen.  (Why would fire and aerosol hair spray be next to each other?!🙄)

The armpit scar feels hard.  It doesn't hurt, but it feels hard.  I'll inquire about that on Friday, but am told (by non-medical people) that that's normal.  I've never had surgery before, so maybe it's a scar thing.  It is also the ugliest of the 3 incisions.

Dr. Torstenson was able to make my breast incisions practically match, and they are lined up in a way that make them almost invisible ALREADY!  (I'm guessing all of that may depend on placement of tumors or junk to be removed.)  I had no idea what to expect, but must have been imagining some gruesome "Boobs of Frankenstein."  I am pleasantly surprised!  

I'm following Dr. T's orders to wear the sports bra and binder...mostly.  I've been ditching the binder when not at home.  I'm still mostly at home, and I do wear it when sleeping.  The one time I was away for the day I took it with me, incase I started to feel uncomfortable.  I'm whining less about the sports bra...but, as my friends can attest, I'm not perfect.  4 days after that first biopsy, when I thought the world was ending in 24 -hours-a-day-sports-bra-saga....if I knew then what I know now....

I have felt some doubt in my decision to have a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy.  I think the doubt comes from anxiety of future scans, and not wanting to have to do this again.  AND concern that if I did have a recurrence that it would be more serious.  That said, I trust my doctor.  If she would have told me a mastectomy is what I should do or is what she would do, I want to believe I would have done it.  I also know my eyes on this Europe trip made me NOT want the more extensive surgery.  I am so excited about the trip, and I hope I don't regret any decision made related to it.  I know the radiation oncologist and medical oncologist will work to make sure a recurrence doesn't happen.  

I need to do my part, too.  WW has been on hold for me since April 10- Diagnosis Day.  Some people would have become even healthier after a cancer diagnosis.  Not this girl!  Give me food, alcohol and very little guilt about either to cope.  When I was diagnosed I asked the nurse navigator if there was anything I should stay away from.  She said soy and refined sugar.  I almost laughed in her face (not about the soy).  I've only gained back 5 of the 27 pounds I had lost, but I'd prefer NOT to gain the other 22.  It's time to stop being a victim and start being a survivor/thriver.  (Who will definitely still eat sugar...)




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