Fill 'er up!

That was the theme of the day.

Yes, I know this was the holy day of atonement, but my plastic surgeon is not Jewish (imagine that.. who knew?). So, I had my now regular Monday plastic surgery appointment.

Today's appointment was something special though. You see, when I had my mastectomies, I had tissue expanders placed beneath my pectoral muscles. These expanders are like partially filled jelly donut shaped balloons. They are slowly inflated with saline (water) until they are larger than I want to be. Then, I get to keep them for 3 more months so they settle and stretch my skin and muscles out. After that, I'll have another surgery to replace them with the newest type of silicone implants. More on those some other time.

Today, I had my first fill. He added 180 cc of saline to each expander (that's about 6 ounces). I had about 400 cc already in, so I am close to being full already! :) He will need to overfill them, so I'll be getting probably 2 or 3 more fills. Even Rachel got into the game. She pushed the first 50 or so ccs in all by herself.

I'm being told that I'm doing remarkably well. I'm still frustrated bc there's so much more I want to be able to do... like open a bottle of water! I can't exercise at all. I'm afraid to get dressed when no one is around bc I might not be able to get the other arm into my shirt (still in button downs). And getting up from lying down is a work out in itself.

OTOH, I was also told that I'm working on getting to be the practice's record holder for keeping a drain in! I have this one blasted drain left and we are at the THREE WEEK MARK!!!! It is finally slowing down, but it's still draining too much fluid to be removed. Hoping it slows down even more in the next few days so it can come out on Thursday.

And while I'm complaining... here's a lovely piece of information. Because of the bilateral mastecomy, I have absolutely no feeling in either axilla (that's underarms for the non-medical crowd). Why should that be important? Just guess what hair has decided to start growing back now too. Really, it could have waited a few more weeks until I have some feeling there. No feeling means that it's not safe to shave. Probably not safe to wax (not long enough) or use one of those chemical depilatories either. And after the reaction the skin around my eyebrows had after waxing last week, I'm just not going to go there!

A happy and healthy new year to one and all!