Body Image; maybe TMI

I've been pretty ill for the past few days and so haven't posted. Earlier today, however, I was thinking about how most, if not all, of this blog has been devoted to feelings, appointments, test results etc. It does not address one of my worst fears, upon learning that I have breast cancer, and that is: "What will I look like after I have the mastectomies?"

I spent some time on the internet looking up images of women who had mastectomies. I didn't come up with a whole lot, but what I saw was encouraging enough; not too bad looking. Where there had once been breasts, there were neat crescent moon shaped scars. Some were not so pretty, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I might look like post-surgery. I don't think I ever thought much about "Oh, without my breasts I'm not going to be "me" anymore!" or "My big boobs were the only thing balancing out my big tummy." It wasn't like that. I'm not sure how to describe it, but...maybe my thinking was more clinical. Removing my breasts was the best way to ensure that I could beat this thing...this cancer. Okay...let's get it done, eh?

Post-surgery...to be honest, I hardly remember a thing that first week. It was longer, yet, before I had the courage to check out my new chest. To begin with, I was all stapled and bandaged up. I felt like I had a tight bandage wrapped all the way around my chest. A couple of weeks later, when I was able to take my first real shower post-op, that's when I actually looked and understood what had happened. I used to have rather...chubbly underarms. My left one still is; they only removed 17 nodes from that one. The right, however, is now quite concave in appearance because they removed 39 nodes there. I also have a slight indentation just below my right collar bone, and next to the sternum, where they removed some nodes from behind my chest wall. My surgeon removed all of the breast tissue from both sides, but there was still some fat left over on my sides and so that...it still sticks out a bit. I'm thinking that maybe that might come in handy during reconstruction, if I do decide to go that route. Plus, when stapling the incisions, the skin flaps didn't line up properly, and so there is a lot of puckering and areas of seemingly random swelling. I guess the scar tissue I had on my breasts from before (bunny scratches and scars) got in the way of properly closing the incisions. Oh well. Each incision starts at my sternum, and ends just at the edge of my underarm. I've been pretty swollen up the last couple of days, due to being ill and in bed for most of the time, I'm sure, but I expect that to all go down soon. Oh yea. I also have a 3" diagonal scar at my left front shoulder through which my port was implanted. My entire surgical area is still numb, as is the bottom side of my left upper arm. My surgeon said feeling may or may not return to these areas. In order to get at the lymph nodes, he had to sever a lot of nerves. Every now and then, I feel twinges and "pings" as the nerves try to heal themselves. It's not terribly comfortable, really, but it's all part of the process.

Body image...no biggie. I think it's actually kind of nice that I no longer have to wear a bra :-) I wear camis, chemises, tank tops...anything that's non-binding. Because of the extensive lymph node removal, I run a 10% chance of ending up with lymphedema, or swelling in my arms and hands caused by my body's inability to move fluids through the lymphatic system. I've heard that lymphedema isn't much fun. So...I cannot wear any clothes that bind, no jewelry; I cannot carry my purse on my right arm, or have my blood pressure taken on that arm. I'm glad that I can still type and knit, though :-) Now I just have to lose some of this tummy to match my new and much more trim chest size *smile. Blessings!