Before I had the op I did the thing that EVERY oncologist, surgeon, specialist and breast care nurse tells you what not to do...I googled! I've done this all the way through my journey through cancer, I can't help myself! When you're going through treatment it's the worse thing to do but I've never been very good at following rules or doing as I'm told! I'm sure I'm not alone!
Anyway, so I googled the reconstruction surgery! But to be quite honest...I didn't find very much? I didn't want the medical professions description on the surgery (although I'd previously read plenty). I wanted a normal persons view from someone who had Actually had it done! I could only really find one honest account from a lady in America on a breast cancer forum. Which quite frankly, didn't fill me with confidence. So Now there will be two horror stories on the Internet!! Hers and mine!
This was never my intention but at the same time I want my blog to be as honest as possible. I hope I can help others by sharing my experience but at the same time I write it for me too. When all is said and done, I want my blog to have a happy ending. I have read and enjoyed so many blogs of ladies that have been going through/been through breast cancer. Each time desperately searching for a full recovery, only to get to the end and find a final blog from one of their loved ones or friends sadly announcing that they had pasted away.
I don't want this blog to end like that, in fact I'm determined it won't! I want to be the girl that lived! I want my blog to be the hope to someone else that I so desperately wanted to find during my darkest times.
Soooo with that in mind...let's have some positives now of my new boob!!!
I'm 9 weeks post surgery now and it's all mostly healed. There are a couple of bits still with dressings on but remember I did burst the wound open in my looney state somehow! I actually had a plastic surgery nurse appointment today and she said why it's taken longer is because, I'm unusual in the fact my body spits out the stitches rather than completely dissolve them!! I'm not in any pain though and I'm really enjoying wearing clothes I haven't been able to wear for a long time. When you have one boob everything has to have a high neckline which really wasn't a big deal before the surgery. However, It's been so nice to just stick on a vest top! The fact I now have a flat stomach is amazing too because I've NEVER had a flat stomach! I can wear nice dresses that I would never of been able to wear before so it's been such a bonus!
With a bra on you would never know my new boob used to be my stomach! Without my bra...well it's boob shaped but obviously the scars are still very visible, however I don't care! In time they will fade but even if they didn't I would still be happy with the result! I don't regret the choice I made to have the surgery one bit. The horror part in this story has been meningitis and not the surgery!
Obviously, at the moment I don't have a nipple as that comes later. Having said that though, I don't think I'm going to bother one. They way I feel right now is that the only person who is going to see it is my husband and I know it doesn't bother him! Had I decided not to have reconstructive surgery he wouldn't of looked at me any different. So instead of a nipple I'm thinking of having something pretty tattooed over the scars! What exactly, I don't know yet! I've never had a tattoo in my life as I've always worried it will hurt, but as there is little feeling in that area that's not going to be an issue ( every cloud)!
Something else I haven't mentioned and that I am proud of, is the fact that Mason and I along with some others did the race for life! It was only two weeks after coming out of hospital after the meningitis episode and for obvious reasons we walked it, well I walked it and pushed Mason in the push chair. When we got close to the finish line though I took him out of the pushchair and he walked the last bit and crossed the finish line holding my hand. I got a bit emotional crossing the finish line as we've been on such a journey together in his short life so far. This was something I had in my mind I wanted to do since last year, so it was a wonderful feeling to reach this point! Even better though was the fact that our little group raised over £700 for Cancer Research UK!
As I think you can see from the photos above, I was still quite poorly and it took two days to recover after but I am so glad we did it. I would of been heart broken if I hadn't!
And Now? Well, I'm feeling so much better that I'm planning to go back to work next week! I wasn't expected back until September but I feel it will do me some good to be back in the real world! I've finally ditched the wig now and although my hair is not quite as long as I'd like I can live with it. I even braved a selfie with my boy the other day!
I've hated how I've looked since chemo so we have very few photos of me & him. Now I think of it, it's our first photo I'm not wearing a wig in (apart from race for life obviously).
Our lovely Kiera- Jayne is in Spain with her Mum, Step Dad and her other little brother. She came to stay when she broke up from school before she went and she will be back down to stay when she gets back before she has to go back to school. We can't wait to see her! I'm determined for us all to have some fun from now on, something that has been seriously lacking through all this!
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