Day 70 - Deflated in Limbo
You know how when you're trying to blow a bubble ... and you try as hard as you can to get it bigger than the last one you blew? But on the outside of the bubble you can see right where the gum is getting thin, but you keep blowing - hoping it will hang on and won't pop just yet ... and just when you think you're going to make it that thin section opens up leaving you with a hole and suddenly deflating bubble. So you hurry to try to salvage it before it goes all the way flat - you pinch the hole together and start blowing again - and it lasts for maybe a few breaths - but eventually another hole develops and the darn thing pops, and you have to start over .... well -- yesterday was like that, kinda.
I have a section of skin, on the left side, a little smaller than a dime, that is thin. There was some trauma during surgery to a larger area surrounding that section and the whole area was a deep purple. As it began to heal underneath, that deep purple area blistered and fell off revealing new, pink skin, but there was a small section that wasn't healing like the rest. It just kept getting worse. SO ... 3 weeks ago, the put in 3 stitches in that spot, and 7 more in the incision. They hoped that by cleaning up that dying area and putting in those 3 stitches - it would heal up and we could keep expanding. Last week, they took the stitches out and everything looked fine, we expanded. This week - that stubborn spot started looking thin ... again.
The decision was to deflate the left side, put in tiny, superficial stitches and give that area a whole month to heal up before we started expansion again. The alternative? Watch it to see if it gets better. If not, and the expander ends up showing through - then put me back through surgery to remove the expander, close up the hole - and start over. So we deflated the left side. They removed 100 CCs (2 weeks of effort!), put in 6 tiny stitches and said come back in 2 weeks so we can take the stitches out and see how it looks and then maybe start expansion again 2 weeks after that. OH - and they expanded the right side. So now the right side is 300 CCs and looking close to like I did before surgery and the left side is half, 150. So the whole month of August is just a big, lopsided wash.
This is the complication I was waiting for -- but just because I was "expecting" it, doesn't mean I'm taking it very well. This is a 6 week set back! 4 weeks to heal, another 2 weeks to "catch up" the left side to the right side ... ugh. It makes me angry.
And to top it all off - we meet with the medical oncologist tomorrow. If she tells me I have to do chemo too - I'm most likely going to have fit. It doesn't feel fair -- I made the harder choice - or what seemed like the harder choice. You're not suppose to have a double mastectomy at 29, 2 months after you get married, before you have kids. But I did - isn't that enough to please the cancer gods? Why must it be even more difficult than that? Why must something as simple as healing - be difficult too. It's not even the incision - it's two inches below the incision! It's the non-cancer side! It's so frustrating ... and I can't do anything about it. I have to just sit and wait ... in limbo. It's like watching the grass grow.
I have a section of skin, on the left side, a little smaller than a dime, that is thin. There was some trauma during surgery to a larger area surrounding that section and the whole area was a deep purple. As it began to heal underneath, that deep purple area blistered and fell off revealing new, pink skin, but there was a small section that wasn't healing like the rest. It just kept getting worse. SO ... 3 weeks ago, the put in 3 stitches in that spot, and 7 more in the incision. They hoped that by cleaning up that dying area and putting in those 3 stitches - it would heal up and we could keep expanding. Last week, they took the stitches out and everything looked fine, we expanded. This week - that stubborn spot started looking thin ... again.
The decision was to deflate the left side, put in tiny, superficial stitches and give that area a whole month to heal up before we started expansion again. The alternative? Watch it to see if it gets better. If not, and the expander ends up showing through - then put me back through surgery to remove the expander, close up the hole - and start over. So we deflated the left side. They removed 100 CCs (2 weeks of effort!), put in 6 tiny stitches and said come back in 2 weeks so we can take the stitches out and see how it looks and then maybe start expansion again 2 weeks after that. OH - and they expanded the right side. So now the right side is 300 CCs and looking close to like I did before surgery and the left side is half, 150. So the whole month of August is just a big, lopsided wash.
This is the complication I was waiting for -- but just because I was "expecting" it, doesn't mean I'm taking it very well. This is a 6 week set back! 4 weeks to heal, another 2 weeks to "catch up" the left side to the right side ... ugh. It makes me angry.
And to top it all off - we meet with the medical oncologist tomorrow. If she tells me I have to do chemo too - I'm most likely going to have fit. It doesn't feel fair -- I made the harder choice - or what seemed like the harder choice. You're not suppose to have a double mastectomy at 29, 2 months after you get married, before you have kids. But I did - isn't that enough to please the cancer gods? Why must it be even more difficult than that? Why must something as simple as healing - be difficult too. It's not even the incision - it's two inches below the incision! It's the non-cancer side! It's so frustrating ... and I can't do anything about it. I have to just sit and wait ... in limbo. It's like watching the grass grow.
Comments
Post a Comment