I'm Getting There.....Slowly

Last Wednesday I went in for my injections.  Turns out that they were my final injections.  I am finally at the size that I should be for the switch out at the end of October.  

I had the full 120cc put into the right side as always.  It looks fantastic.  I'm very pleased with the results and know that once the implant is in, it will look so much better.  On the left she only put in 60cc.  With the way that the muscle turned and the expander turned, I was stretching the wrong way.  So to avoid having to do more repair than necessary, I took less.  Essentially what is going to happen is the left side is going to have a bit of a bigger implant. 

The implant has to be bigger because of the need to manipulate the muscle back to the way that it is supposed to be.  I'll end up having 2 scars on the left breast instead of 1 like on the right.  At this point it doesn't really matter about the scarring as I am sure that Dr. Mess will do a fantastic job to make them look perfect.

While that is still awhile off, I still am dealing with the muscle spasms.  From the day of the injections until Monday morning, I have had horrid spasms.  Wednesday, the pain hit about 10 minutes after I left Dr. Mess' office.  I ended up taking all the meds I could in the 24 hour time period and still got no relief or quality sleep.  

The night before the injections, I had someone very important to me break my heart.  I had been running on 2 hours of sleep and then I went in for injections.  That was not a smart move.  Then you add the pain of the spasms and still not being able to sleep on top of it, I ended up sleeping for maybe 4-5 hours over a 48 hour period.  Each morning I was waking up unable to pull myself out of bed and having to depend on Andy to lift me up so I could just get out of the bed.  

The last couple of days haven't been so bad, but physically I think I have broken down as much as I can.  While the pain is easing up, I still find some tasks difficult to do.  To me that is frustrating.  Typing on the computer for too long causes pain to shoot up and down my right arm.  Remember, that is the side that the nodes were removed from.  I continue to do stretches on it and anything else that I need to for it to try and feel better.  

I'm trying not to Google too much to try and get answers.  Afterall, not every case is the same and not every person is the same.  I just hope that I don't have to deal with muscle spasms when the implants are put in.  I'm not sure how much more of those I would be able to deal with.  While it is true that I am a strong person, there is a breaking point as well.

That is all that I have for this morning.  Please excuse if it sounds like ramblings as I am still tired but wanted to get the thoughts out and the blog updated.  I hope all of you have a blessed day and thank you for continuing to love me through it.

I'm Such a Slacker....Lots of Updates

Okay, so I have been slacking, but I do have some pretty good stories for the last week.  So buckle up and get ready for this ride.

On the 21st I went in and had 110cc put in each side, this was the day after I had those horrid muscle spasms.  I had my friend Suzy go in with me to this appointment.  While I never look down during injections, Suzy did watch.  She seemed thrilled with how she could see the boobs puffing up during the injections.  With the 110cc put in, that puts me at 590cc total.  That number may change depending on if Dr. Mess had put any saline in on the day of the surgery.  According to my nurse Renee, I will probably be inflated to 800-850cc before we are done with expanding.  YAY!!  It is normal to over expand as they need the extra skin for the switchout.

Well, I thought the muscle spasms I had before were bad.  I was wrong.  That night the muscle spasms had me screaming and writhing in pain.  I was able to get myself out of bed and crawl to momma's room to get her up.  I was absolutely terrified of how bad the pain was.  I ended up sitting up with her until about 7am the next morning.  I drugged myself up and went back to bed.  I've had a few nights that have sucked, but not nearly as bad as that night.

The next day I had to go to Freshman Orientation for Mike.  Talk about a reality check.  Then of course you add my pain on top of it, I did not want to be there and going on a tour of the school and listening to rambling.  That may not be what it was, but that's what it felt like when I was there.  I did suck it up and "soldier" on and go though.  That's my job as mom.

Oh, did I mention in a previous blog, as I am pretty out of it right now and feeling like crap, Mike made the JV football team.  Talk about another proud mom moment there.  I was neglecting myself by not taking my needed meds to make sure that he was getting to his practices and such.  I wasn't going to punish him for my illness.  Another one of those that's my job things.

Then it seemed as though an angel dropped out of the sky.   One of Mike's teammates said that he could ride home with them.  They literally live around the corner from us.  This was such a big help.  Even the teammate's mom told me I need to be taking care of me and that if I needed anything, just to let her know.  So now I don't have to worry about whether I can get Mike to and from practice if Andy isn't home.

Okay, so back to the reconstruction stuff.  I have set the date for my switch out.  October 25th I will be going back in and having my implants put in and some fat grafting done.  The fat grafting is to make sure that they look normal instead of the whole Pam Anderson look that people relate to implants.  I am looking forward to that date simply because that means I am one step closer to being done with this process.

If you look at the pictures on the other tab above, you'll see the progress.  You might notice that one side looks different than the other.  Not only in size, but in shape.  The reason for this is because the muscle shifted and caused the expander to shift.  This is common, so don't be alarmed.  At this point I'm not.  As long as they look normal when done.

Last week, I received a package in the mail from one of my mommy friends.  She made me a beautiful necklace to represent my journey.  She makes hand-stamped jewelry.  Check her out if you get a chance.  She is a work at home mom.  You can find her store at www.etsy.com/shop/memorylanejewelry  Again, I cried for the kindness and the thought to do something so wonderful for me.  I truly feel as though I don't deserve as many blessings as I have had through this journey.



Today was an accomplished day.  I got the big kid up for his first day of Freshman year.  Yes, I was "that" mom and took a picture as he was headed out.  Then I gave him a hug.  Then I promptly started crying as this is my big baby and he is growing up so fast.  Then we had the conference to meet Landen's teacher today.  Yep, my 2nd baby is headed to Pre-K.  Where has the time gone?  Let's not forget the 2 hour trip to the grocery and then putting it all away.  So I am pretty beat.

I'll try and update after my next set of injections on Wednesday, but with the pain, my classes starting back up and Mike's football, I am finding life to be pretty hectic.  Please forgive me if I don't keep up nearly as much these days.  I will do as I can.  Don't forget to check out the pics section if you are following that, to see the last updates there.

Pump Me Up Version 2

I ended up having some fluid build up that was concerning me.  So instead of waiting for Dr. Mess to get me in on Monday, she got me into the office on Saturday morning.  That's one hell of a Dr. if you ask me.

The swelling on the right was not nearly as bad as it appeared the night before and she wasn't able to get any more than 20cc of fluid out of it, but still could feel some in there.  She told me just to put the surgical bra back on and hope that it would reabsorb.  If not, we will try and remove some more on Thursday.  She just didn't want to risk hitting my expander and having to start over because of puncturing it trying to get the fluid.

For some reason the swelling on the left was worse, but sure didn't feel like it.  She ended up pulling 60cc of fluid off of that side.  Dr. Mess figured that we probably wouldn't have to worry about fluid after the appointment this week.

While I saw her on Saturday, she did end up giving me my injections.  So I got 120cc more in each side, which means I am now up to a B cup.  I'm not flat chested anymore.  And.....if I feel like putting on one of my bras, I actually look like my boobs look nice, just not as big as normal.  I'm okay with that for now.

For those of you who want to see the new pics, you can find them on the page with all of the other pictures.

This morning was awful though.  I woke up with the most horrendous muscle spasms in my chest.  I couldn't even lift up to try and get my meds.  I started crying which was hard to do with the pain, and then started begging for my meds.  Andy was able to lift me up, get my meds and lay me back down.

I found that laying down with the spasms only made them worse.  So I decided to get up and go hang out with mom outside.  I was feeling much better, and the spasms let up on me.....that was until I stood up to do anything.  :-(

Enough time had passed that I was finally able to take more meds and get a good nap in.  Most of the pain has subsided, but I still am tender.  I just hope that this pain subsides completely by Thursday that way I can get my other 120cc to get me up to a C.

I just want to get to the point where I can go get these terrible expanders out and put my nice new implants in.  That will just mean that this journey will be closer to an end and I can move on to other journeys in my life.

I'm Going to Pump You Up....

So yesterday I went and saw Dr. Mess.  I wasn't sure what the appointment was other than to just check me over.  Well, I was getting my first injections.  Yes, I sure was excited.  I was doing the whole sitting down happy dance and hooping and hollaring.  That was until she stuck me with the needle to put the saline in the expanders.

Ouch!  Ouch!  Ouch!  This sucks.  That's exactly what I was saying.  Dr. Mess had to remind me to breathe cause all I could think was to hold my breath and maybe that would hold off the pain.  Yeah, no bueno.  That didn't work for me.

She did notice that I had some fluid under the armpit, or the side boob as some would call it.  She ended up poking around and pulling 50cc out of the right side after she had done my saline injection.

Switch to the left side and that didn't hurt as bad.  Felt pretty normal.  Was doing fine and wasn't cussing about how bad the pain sucked.  So the left side wasn't too bad.  Then of course we notice fluid on the left side like there was on the right side.  Dr. Mess poked around and ended up getting 70cc out of that side.

At first I started thinking that it was a large amount for her to have to drain out of me, but considering the drains had been removed on Thursday, those amounts of fluid weren't too bad.  I can live with that.  Hopefully when I go back on Monday we won't have to drain anymore fluid, but you never know.

So the injections didn't take too long.  I got 120cc put in to each side.  This essentially took me to being an A cup.  I am proud of that A cup right now.  At least I'm not completely flat chested.  The scarring still looks pretty bad to me and I am struggling with it, but hey, I'll eventually find acceptance to all of this, right?

After we left from my appointment I finally realized why I was given Compazine.  A ginormous wave of nausea hit me and I wanted to toss my cookies.  So instead of throwing up, I had Andy turn the air up to cool me off in hopes of me not getting sick.  We get down the road a few miles and my personality came out.  I told him that he needed to turn the AC down cause my nipples were going to fall off they were so cold.  The humor in that is that I don't have nipples anymore.  I thought it was funny.  I think Andy thought I was out of my mind.  Maybe at that point I was, but ya know what?  I walked out of Dr. Mess' office with an A cup, and that was a win win situation.