I have to say things are looking good now. After the 75cc fill last week, I was miserable for a few days, partly because of the grinding sensation against my ribs and later because of the dizziness from taking that one little Darvocet.
I did fine on the trip to Arkansas, but made a point to take ginger pills when riding through the twisty-turney hills with someone else driving. But I’d say my head was messed up for nearly a week from that one pill.
Yesterday I got my 3rd fill. And as I’d guessed, it took only 50ccs to get the expander implant to its design capacity of 450ccs. However, the doc says he can still expand it lots more.
I asked him about the ridge line that I can feel in the breast. When I wake up in the morning it crosses near the top of the breast (more north-south), but after I’m up for a while, it is mostly horizontal (east-west). Looking at a sample implant, it appears this ridge I’m feeling is the edge of the reinforced oval-ish area that is on the upper slope of the breast. Inside that is the circular port where the doc injects more saline each fill.
This time the doc filled the implant first, then drew out the fluid that had accumulated outside the implant. He got some fluid from the bottom of the breast near the armpit, but really hit the motherlode on the cleavage side. He said it was a good sign that there were two separate pockets of fluid instead of one big pocket. It means the tissues are healing inside there.
In case I didn’t describe the process previously, here’s the way it works. For removing the fluid, the doc injects a bit of numbing medicine, which I don’t typically feel at the skin level. I may feel a little pressure or sting deeper inside but it only last a second. He may take a small tool to puncture the skin or just use a big syringe with a wide needle that’s dull on the end so it won’t poke a hole in the implant. Then he just starts sucking fluid out with the syringe, sometimes moving the needle around to get into other pockets, sometimes pushing on the breast to push the fluid toward the syringe.
For the fill: The doc uses a little “stud finder” to locate the metallic port in the implant. He marks the spot with a pen, then injects that spot with some numbing medicine. Again, I don’t feel the needle going in (because the nerves to the breast were cut in the mastectomy) but feel some stinging deeper inside the muscle.
Then he puts a needle with a little tube into the port where he marked the spot and connects that to a special syringe which is also connected to a bag of saline. There’s a valve on the syringe so he can either: (a) draw more saline into the syringe from the bag, or (b) squirt the saline into the implant. He can actually flip back and forth if the fill takes more than one syringe full of saline. When he’s done, the tube/needle come out of the port and they put a little bandaid on the spot.
This time I feel fine. I’m sore and my chest wall seems to burn a little all the time, and the muscle on top is tender. But it’s not so bad that it’s all I think about. In fact I don’t think about it unless I am active and either jostling it or using the muscle on that side. I rarely feel any of the bubbling, grinding weirdness now, which is a blessing.
My plan is to go back next week for another 50ccs. The right breast is already bigger in volume than the natural breast. But we need extra skin for the nipple reconstruction and also to create a little bit of natural droop, if possible. So I want to stretch as much as possible up front and then give the skin a month to surrender a bit.
We’re thinking the final implants will go in maybe the week of November 17. Tho the doc said he could put them in as soon as 2 weeks from now. I have 2 events where I’ll be selling my “Thingy” self-improvement bracelets on the 2nd and 3rd weekends in Nov, so I didn’t want to be just coming off surgery when I’ll need to be hauling a bunch of stuff around. Besides, I really do want to give the skin as much time to stretch as I can and still finish the whole process this year.
The final surgery will involve, for the right breast, opening the same incision from the mastectomy, removing the expander and plopping in the nice squishy silicone implant. On the left, the doc will make a small incision in the fold at the bottom of the breast, tuck the silicone implant behind the existing breast tissue and sew me up.
This will be a short day surgery. He said they can use an airway assist device that doesn’t go down my throat but helps the anesthesiologist ensure my breathing. If it were a surgery that required repositioning my body, they’d have to use a more stable breathing tube down the throat.
Interestingly, it seems that after each expansion it only takes maybe 4 or 5 days for the skin/muscle to soften up. I have been rubbing lotion on it twice a day to keep the skin pliable, which seems to be helping. So maybe another 2 fills will do it.
And it seems as if the worst of it is over now. So I’m happy about that.
BTW, for anyone who did not get my email, please check out www.armyofwomen.org , a program (supported by Dr. Susan Love and Avon) conducting multiple studies of (ideally) a million women of all types and ages, with and without breast cancer, in hopes of determining the causes of the disease.
Go to the Volunteer link, then “How you can help” and register. There will be studies that only require you to fill out questionnaires. Others ask that you mail in samples (saliva, urine, toenail clippings, breast milk, house dust, etc.) in provided kits. All you do is register and they will email you when they need subjects for studies. You may not qualify for all the studies, but any time you can participate will help add to the knowledge base.
Have a wonderful weekend.
