An Emotional Mess

I'm not really sure what my deal is with being an emotional mess.

I've had some personal things happen with my family in the last few days, which I am sure is contributing to the emotional mess, but I was feeling like this before all of that.  I don't like talking about those personal things, just know that it is not the kind of thing I need to be dealing with after all of the things I have already dealt with just with my health.

I know when I posted the other day, I mentioned doing a whole bunch of crying.  It just seems to be getting worse.  I'm not really sure if my regular meds are working as they should be.  Probably should say something to the doctor about that.

I know that my expectations of people are pretty high.  In fact I would expect them to show me the same kind of courtesy that I have shown them during difficult times in their lives.  This is where I have started to realize how many people that have been in my life really don't give a damn, and frankly they never have.  I see that now.

Granted I posted how I was doing on Facebook, but since the surgery, I have had 1 friend, ONE call me to ask me how I was doing.  I then had 1 other person shoot me a message to ask me how I was doing.  Do you know how lonely it is to realize when you don't really have friends?  I'm not talking about the 54 amazing ladies who have been there to listen to me and be there for me through this.

I am talking about people who I have met in person.  People I have spent time with.  People who know the real me and not just the me they see on the computer.  It's pretty damn lonely that these people who have pretended for years upon years to be your friend, only to show that they don't care.

Granted I beat a cancer that was pretty easy to beat because of finding it as soon as I did.  Of course because I didn't have to do chemo or radiation and lose my hair, it's not a bad enough cancer to have support.  In fact, it's a cancer that most people wouldn't consider cancer because it doesn't require the harsh drugs.

I've heard reactions from people who have laughed about it.  It's no big deal.  You'll get over it.  Mind you, these are people who swore were my friends.  I've had people make comments about me not looking like I have endured all of these surgeries.

Just because I am not deathly ill from chemo and such doesn't mean that this whole process hasn't been painful.  Sure, 3 surgeries in a 6 month time span sucks, a lot.  I have watched anesthesia cause me to lose big chunks of my hair.  I've watched my scalp starting to show right in the front unless I have my hair all scrunched up into curls or pulled up in a pony tail.  I have gone from having my own breasts that I liked, to having no breasts with nasty scars, to weekly injections that hurt and caused excrutiating pain, while looking at misshapen objects that were put in place of my boobs.  Then I go in and have the implants put in.  They look beautiful, despite the nasty scars that are on them, but they really aren't mine.  The pain from the lipo is more than I can deal with.  I can't hold my kids, I can't lay how I want to.  Sleep is avoiding me.  Frankly I am miserable right now, and just wish that the healing were over and I could go on with my life.

That's just the physical aspect of it all.  The emotional aspect is even harder to deal with.  I've spent the majority of this time making jokes about it.  I laugh about having wanted new boobs, but I sure didn't want to get them because of cancer.  I laughed about the perk of lipo so that I could at least lose some of this weight, but that is just another mask.  I still hate what I see when I look in the mirror.  I honestly hate myself and what I see.  Obviously this is how others see me as the personal issues just continue.  I obviously have very little value, or people would stop making things in my life more complicated than they already are, especially 5 days after a major surgery.

I am constantly putting a smile on when I really don't want to.  I have to put this facade on so that people won't question my ability to be a good wife, daughter, mom and friend.  Inside I am dying though.  I can't be the real me without people making comments like previously mentioned.

This has not been an easy journey.  This is the ugly side of this disease.  I can't speak for everyone else out there who has dealt with breast cancer, but I'm sure the consensus would be that more often than not you just have to fake it to make it.  Reality is, people don't want to see the truth about how this disease tears the person apart.  Sure, in the long run you can hold your head up and say that you beat it, but just muddling through it day after day is the hard part.

Sorry for such a long post.  I have a ton of thoughts rolling around and I'm trying to get them out while I'm waiting on the pain meds to kick in and just make me pass out.  If some of this doesn't make sense, please refer back to the statement of me being on heavy duty pain meds.

While I may be struggling right now, I wish you all a beautiful and blessed day.

4 Days Post Op

*So I am 4 days post op.  Friday I went in at 10:00.  Surgery was supposed to start at 11:30 but was delayed because Dr. Mess' first case was delayed.  No problem though.  Not like I was going anywhere without having my surgery done.

As always we started out with the same routine of if I ate or drank.  Was my insurance the same?  Had I been feeling well?  You know...all the random stuff they ask you before they drug you up and start cutting you open.  I was doing great for the most part with managing stress and anxiety.  That was until it really hit me that this was going to be almost the very end of this journey.  The anxiety did pick up a little bit, but I was okay once I was headed in.

Aunt Sandy came out here to take me to my surgery and help me out for a few days.  Andy had an assessment for work that couldn't be rescheduled on Friday, so I didn't expect him to be at the hospital when I woke up, but he was.  So of course that made me overly emotional seeing that my husband made it there to be with me.  Then of course thinking about Mike being stressed out thinking I was going to be a mess like I was after the mastectomy and then Landen being at home so sick.  Everything just made me want to cry.

Surgery took a little more than 3 hours.  I came out of it feeling pretty good other than the nausea.  I honestly think that the oxygen is what makes me nauseous.  It seems like any time they have had the oxygen on me, I just feel so sick.  I'm not totally sure why since oxygen is good for you.

As for the pain, it seemed to be at a minimum....at least until I stood up.  I felt like I was being tore in 2 by my top and my bottom.  That came from having fat grafting done.  So with my new boobs, I was able to get some of my fat gone.  Right now you can't tell from the amount of bruising and swelling, but I'm pretty sure enough was taken to drop me 2 pants sizes.  Can't beat getting a bit of lipo so that my implants will look more natural.

The last couple of days I've been doing fairly well, as long as I don't have to bend over.  I of course am not allowed to be lifting anything, not that I would want to.  It sucks because I want to be able to hold and hug the kids and dogs, but am afraid of them hitting me the wrong way and me being in pain all over again.

So today I went in for my post op appointment.  Dr. Mess said that everything looked good.  She slathered me up with Neosporin and put gauze back on me.  I have to go back next Monday to make sure that all is healing well still.  Even with the scarring, I am very impressed with the shape and feel of the implants.  Eventually they will be more and more squishy and the cleavage will be back to normal, or as normal as possible with implants.

For now that is all that I have for you.  For those of you who are interested, the pics from Friday are with the photos section.  I hope that all of you have a beautiful and blessed day.

Picking Back Up

I know I've been pretty quiet.  I've used this blog just for my journey, so with there having been nothing going on, I sort of let it go.  I did think about posting a few times, but most of the things I would talk about wouldn't even relate to my journey.  With that said, there is an update.

I went and had my pre-op appointment with Dr. Mess today.  They took another picture so that there is a baseline as to where she needs to put my implants and all that good stuff.  Besides talking about my numerous questions, we discussed how I am feeling about this whole thing.

To be honest, I am really looking forward to this surgery.  I'm not afraid anymore.  Sure I don't like the idea of being cut open again, but I also don't like laying on these rocks.  That's the best way that I can describe how these tissue expanders feel.  I am a belly sleeper, and I haven't been able to comfortably sleep the way that I want just because of how hard these are.  I just want to have squishy boobs again.

We talked about going back in through the scars that are already there, that way I don't have 2 sets of scars. Sounds good to me.  If they fade out as well as these ones have, then I don't think that it will be too hard for me to get past the look of them.  I'll have to post a picture of how they look before I go in for my surgery that way ya'll can see how good the scarring actually looks.

Since implants really don't look real, I also get to have some fat grafting done.  This will be where Dr. Mess will make an incision near my belly button and suck fat out.  The fat will then be transplanted to my chest to fill in the dents between my collarbone and the implants.  It's not something that can be seen in a picture, but in person you can actually see where I am concave.  So essentially, I get to lose a bit of fat too.  Can't really beat that, and I sure won't complain.  That's for sure.