deconstruction

I am ready to be deconstructed.

Four and a half years ago, after a mastectomy that removed my right breast, 2 silicon implants were placed in my chest.  The one on the right replaced the breast that was removed.  The smaller one on the left was supposedly put it to make it more "match" the fake right breast.  The left breast needed a lift.

It didn't work out so well, cosmetically.  Actually, the lifted left breast "looks" pretty good, but it doesn't even come close to matching the silicon blob that protrudes from my right chest.  The right implant never "settled", so it sits high on my chest, almost to my collarbone.  I've heard the doctor say that it is "too large".  I think he means large, width-wise, because every time I extend my right arm I feel a pinch in my underarm area.  This is especially annoying when I swim.  

For the last year or more my breasts have become more and more painful.  There is a constant ache around the right implant.  I recently had an MRI to check and see if anything was wrong, but that came back with a diagnosis of "everything looks fine" in there, meaning that the implant was not leaking.  I suspect that it is muscle pain, because the implant is actually under the pectoral muscle, and the muscle feels stretched and strained.  It is especially painful when it is cold outside.

Anyway, I've had enough.  I want the implant(s) out and am ok with being flat chested on one side.  I'm not sure how the left breast will look with the implant out.  Like a deflated balloon?  But a plastic surgeon should be able to do something about that, shouldn't he?

Much as I don't like the idea of someone cutting on me, I want this done.  I can't wait to be free of my silicon chest.  For more than 4 years I've felt like I had a plate of armor weighing down on me.  I don't hug people closely - I always hold them just a little bit a part from me.  I'm protecting myself and I'm embarrassed by this barrier that is in me.  I'm afraid to be touched on or around my chest.  This all makes me sad.  

I'm ready to let it all go.  The silicon, the fear.  I want my body back, even if it is wounded and flawed.

I want to touch and be touched.

My appointment is on Tuesday, and that is when I will schedule the surgery.

[My gosh, I notice in the post below, written more than 3 years ago, I am saying much of what I say today.  Funny that it has taken me 3 years to get to the place where I am ready to go through another surgery.]

a place to put my hurt

First, a confession: I can be quite neurotic – hypersensitive, over-dramatic, lacking in objective perspective, even downright loony.

Perhaps I am still “processing” the whole ordeal of losing my right breast. Or maybe I'm this way all the time, but won't admit to it without an excuse.

I do not want any of the feelings that I write here to reflect on the professionalism and skill of the doctors who have treated me. Even though I have not quite come to terms with my reconstruction surgery – things are, in fact, still changing – I consider my plastic surgeon to be extremely competent, responsive, and perhaps a genius.

I am getting used to my new breasts – even starting to feel that they look good, despite not being perfect matches. The right breast is falling more and I don’t feel so strange looking.

And because I’m more healed, I’m not afraid to expose my breasts anymore. (Yes, I make love with nothing covering them now – yeah!) What is it about the way I do not want others to see my wounds - to see where I hurt? I bet a shrink could make something of that.

Maybe part of my reason for writing here is to have a place to put my hurt.

healing ... again

It is good for me to be told: no you cannot exercise, no you cannot swim, no you cannot work.

I am free to do nothing. To sit outside with Jubilee and watch the wind in the trees. To be empty, and quiet.

I am healing … again … I think both emotionally and physically … from the trauma of being diagnosed with breast cancer, having my breast removed, and then “reconstructed”. In time, I want to write a little more clearly and decisively about this experience, and in a way that will directly address the way the medical system and the culture responds to breast cancer, and the way that the patient gets sucked into that mindset.

Reconstructive surgery is touted as either “no big deal” or the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is neither. It is both painful and disfiguring, even if you have the best plastic surgeon (and I do).

I know that I will adapt to my new breast, but I also know that I will never be “normal-looking” again. I wonder if I could have had the guts to be a uni-breast, if it had been more encouraged, more accepted.

My cancers were very small (the invasive cancer was detectable only by MRI) and early stage. There must be a way to stop cancers at this stage without resorting to removing the entire breast. I have read somewhere about an infrared (I think) beam that could be directed at the tumor, and kill it from within. However, it needs further testing and research. I would have gladly volunteered to be part of that study.

And I will get photos up here of my new breasts – I’m just still feeling a bit too swollen, wounded and vulnerable. So I return to the backyard – to heal.

I dreamed that I had 2 breasts (reconstruction)

I dreamed that I had 2 breasts, nipples and all.

I don’t know what to expect from my reconstruction surgery. I have now an expander in the place where my right breast used to be - a round area of stretched skin that is higher than where a natural breast would be (and rounder). It still feels a bit tight, but mostly the tissue feels like it has adapted to this foreign “thing”. Sometimes it feels like I (my chest wall) am behind it, pressing against it. When I take off my bra, I feel like I still have something on.

The only time I notice it hurting now is when I swim. The water is still fairly cold, and I can swim for a half and hour or more. Later, for a day or so, there is a deep ache in the non-breast area and under my arm.

Below the expander is the mastectomy scar and a strange accumulation of skin. Just after the mastectomy this was the area that was filled with fluid (the seroma). Now it feels mostly numb and hard, like perhaps it has become some kind of scar tissue.

Most of the time I feel ok with the expander – it doesn’t feel natural, but I can live with it. I know that I don’t like the way that it looks though, and something has to be done.

I have no idea how Dr. Lickstein will shape this into a cavity into which he will place a silicon implant.

Then he will have to “lift” and augment the other breast to match the implant.

I don’t like the idea of messing with my good, natural (and healthy) breast. But I know that there is no other way that I could look balanced, or halfway normal.

The surgery will take 3 ½ hours. I don’t even want to think about what will be done to me – my breasts – during that time. Like, how will he know if they are even? Will he sit me up, like a corpse?

ohmygosh (looking at myself)

Ohmygosh – look at me. That’s my reaction at looking at my chest and the site of my mastectomy surgery, and I don’t make the effort to look. On the one side is this beautiful, soft, natural breast. On the other … scars, bulges of skin, a hard round something (the expander). This is my body? This happened to me?

It’s been a good week, though. For the first time, I am beginning to not actively hurt – though there are still places of soreness. Dr. Lickstein gave me the first injection of “new breast” (saline into the expander) and it was no big deal. I had been expecting the worst. He told me not to worry about the seroma and to get on with exercising my arms. And the seroma does seem to be getting better.

It has been a month since my surgery. Tonight I asked John a lot of questions about what happened on that day of surgery. Funny how little I remember.

I went to an exercise class this morning and it was just wonderful. I was able to pretty much keep up with all the ladies and I left feeling flushed with endorphins. I’m going again Monday. I was able to do most of the arm exercises using low weights.

And I made an appointment with the oncologist for next Thursday. Finally I guess I’ll face the facts about my cancer and what I need to do now.

morning meditation (counting down)

Sometimes I wish that rather than having this extra time before surgery to “process”, I could go ahead and just get it over with.

There is something hanging over these days – an anticipation, a dread, a fear – that is always with me.

I know that it is way out of proportion, but I compare it with how a condemned man must feel when he knows his execution date and time. I watch the calendar, and know that the time is counting down.

I think of the soldiers and civilians who are wounded in war, and then carry and live with their wounds all of their lives.

I wonder about physical woundedness. And yet here I am whole, seemingly healthy, with a body that I mostly love and cherish.