Life goes on…for all of us, including me. Everyone has gone back to work and school and here I am, left to my own devices. It's been hard. First morning alone with the kids and getting them ready for school and out the door was a shit show. Then I came back to discover it was impossible to walk the dog without crying in pain. The next day, I devised a system that has has worked well for the past few mornings now. I delegate to the boys. One walks the dog and other takes care of laundry stuff. Same thing when we get home from school, one walks the dog and the other carries things back up the stairs for me. John finishes up whatever I can’t do after dinner…and it’s quite a bit. So yeah, life does go on! Team work makes the dream work, right?
Frustration. There’s a huge frustration level that comes with all of this. Let’s start with t-rex arms. I can’t do much that’s useful nor productive with little arms. I’ve yelled for the kids to scratch my head or back, grab plates or cups from cabinets and used kitchen tongs to get a sweater out of my closet. I felt totally defeated when there was no more toilet paper on the rolls in the bathrooms, which I discovered after they all left for the day. No big deal right? WRONG. Extras are stashed at the top of a closet or in the upper cabinet of the laundry room. No matter how I tried, there was no way to reach them on my own. I grabbed the kitchen tongs and managed to get one roll and sat on the floor and laughed at the absurdity and cried at the stupidity. I did try food shopping on my own and discovered a problem. I can't put groceries into my car if it weighs more than 5 pounds. Our local market has the best manager who carried my stuff out and loaded them into my car for me. There’s also a level of frustration with pain and discomfort. I can’t really leave my arms at my sides, hurts too much. I sleep with my left arm elevated on a special pillow because that brings some relief. The right arm isn’t as bad as they did not clean out those lymph nodes. I won’t discuss the muscle spasms from Hell or how I effing hate the feel of seatbelts right now...
Now that Satan’s Hideous Corset is gone, what do I wear? A sports bra was a horrific idea. Holy Moley. Not doing that again. So seriously, what do I wear? I looked on line to see what my options were for after a double mastectomy. Let me start by saying I am NOT 80 years old. Can’t they make anything that is pretty and feminine and not old lady hospital looking? Way to put a gal in a funk. Just because a woman has a major operation and loses her breasts does not mean she has given up on being feminine. Marshall’s did yield me a few cute and girlie options that did not make me keel over in pain, were easy to get on (35 minutes in the dressing room!), cheap and still looks quite dainty and feminine. Come on designers, get with it. There’s an untapped market for women in my current situation. I say current because I will, at some point, have foobs. (faux boobs), maybe some kind of stretchy expanding sort of lacey thing needs to be created? Shark Tank!!
Speaking of emptiness, I cleaned out my bra drawer to make room for new things. That hurt. Not that much really fit or were comfortable but I had options. Now I have a mostly empty drawer…I’m hopeful for bigger and better things…
Speaking of the missing pair, I always thought those things had some good weight to them. Nope. Not mine. Felicia was 0.736 pounds. Righty was 0.639 pounds. Felicia must have been a fat bitch to weigh that much more. But really? 1.375 pounds total? People eat burgers bigger than that! I was secretly hoping for more! Next pair will be BIGGER, but I still want to be able to see my feet when I look down!
It’s been tough looking in the mirror as of late. What I see makes no sense. I look like an alien, stitches, swelling, tubes and lots of bruising.. I try not to let it bother me, but it does. I wouldn’t be human if it didn’t. Today, I lost one tentacle and testicle, left side is free. See Felicia, I’m moving along quite nicely without your nasty little nugget of doom. Right side is a little hesitant. No worries, it has to do with the incisions needing some tapering and evening out before the plastic surgeon closed them. It’s healing but needs an extra few days. I’ve got a little more freedom-ish…why the ish? Hello water balloon!
Once the tubes were out from my left side, the surgeon decided to manipulate my alien looking torso and squish out more fluid. Ew. Really Ew. When body parts are removed, our bodies like to fill those areas with fluid, hence the tubes and bulbs. Create suction and suck that out. Since lefty (gonna need a new name) has healed nicely, it was time for a fill!! Yes!!!! The expansion would create less room for fluid to build up, keeping me healthy and lessen the risk of infection. It was sooooo bizarre yet cool to watch. A magnet finds the port and a HUGE syringe fills it with saline. I got to watch the birth of a boob. It was beautiful. Once it looked a little boobish, more squishing of fluid. I kid you not. It was extremely uncomfortable. Guess what? That’s what cancer does to you. The whole thing hurts (physically and psychologically), is uncomfortable and foreign. But it’s doable and dare I say FUNNY?!?! So after the squishing, there was more room for more expansion! Since parts of me are still quite numb, all I really felt was pressure, a very new and odd pressure, but I watched the boob grow some more. I think I can really get on board with this now. Oh, in case you were wondering (because I'll admit to wondering), my newly inflated boob isn't bouncy. It's like a rock but it's rather boob looking and I love it! My new pair will be spectacular!
Now I’m lopsided in the most hilarious of ways. I’ve got a testicle on a tentacle on the right side and I am now the UniBoober!!
Hopefully, the right will drain more and heal up quickly within the next 48 hours so it can experience the same as lefty. Now excuse me while I go and try and stand on my head and shake more fluid out of me…
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