We had our first snow day in Oklahoma today! I know all the northerners are making fun of us as we speak but it prompted me to get out of the house to enjoy with the girls and  I had to run an errand to get my phone fixed, priorities! If you have been following from the beginning thank you for support as I ramble on some of these blogs as I stated from the start..raw emotions. If you are new to the blog, thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you gain some insight to this journey.

I am just about 5 weeks post (will be Monday Jan.9th) this has been my most emotional and hardest week so far, I know seems like I am traveling backwards and it should get easier as time goes on.  I know that my hormones are off and that will take time to adjust, but I think I am in the grieving process and as I come to my last fill of the tissue expanders and my date for the implant swap is set for March 23rd I now realize this is “Me” the new “Me”and quite frankly it sucks and I want to just be my normal Kathy. This week emotionally has been hard to  look in the mirror, to get out of bed, to look at anything positive, I feel as though everything is out of control, out of balance and I am drowning. I stress about everything and am stressed about my recovery, the unknown, finances as things are tight now. I am the caretaker of everyone! That is my personality and I just can’t do it, I can’t stand that I have to rely on other people.

Let me back up a few weeks. I went to the dr on Dec.12th for a 2 week check up with the GYNO and everything was looking great and I was healing from the hysterectomy well, I was amazed how  little pain I was in from that procedure, but it does take a toll.. Insomnia, fatigue, cramping, random swelly belly yep I just lost my breasts and I also look like I am 6 months pregnant…Ummm not fair! If you remember, I had a very hard time making the decision to have the total hysterectomy and this dr convinced me that it was my best option and I would be ok so on his advice and prayer and leap of faith I consented. My pathology report all came back benign EXCEPT my cervix which showed stage 0-1 cancer that had started at the back of my cervix. I had just had a clear pap smear 9/1 of this year! Holy Hell! This isn’t even related to the gene, they estimated with how aggressive this was that I would have only lived to be about 37-39 years old. I am 19 days short of turning 36. Well if this wasn’t a God thing I don’t know what is! Since I had the cervix removed during and nothing had spread I was good and cancer free.

Now onto the constant pain… These expanders that are on my chest are bricks and are constantly stretching my muscle and hurts! It hurts when I breath, it hurts when I walk when I move, the skin is raw feeling and itches but yet I have no feeling on the outside of my skin. They are oblong and so awkard looking in a tshirt, this is where I hate going in public I just want normal boobs! But this is temporary.. I go to get weekly fills to help expand and make room for the implant, I am broad shouldered so we did the biggest at 800cc in hopes to achive a full C cup, which was my orginal size. My skin is stretching well and looks like I will be able to get my desired size so there is some light!

So as you can imagine as they fill more saline, the harder it gets and tighter anf heavier on my chest. Nerves start to wake up and I will just be honest it hurts like hell. I have to take it easy the rest of the day and the day after and take valium at night

I have been getting 100cc each fill each week after the initial 200 and that was painful and do not recommend to anyone! No matter how high your pain tolerance is. I have one more fill left and that will put me at 800 and then I will let settle until the exchange surgery, per insurance guidelines have to wait at least 90 days . I keep reminding myself..Nice soft round implants are in store. This is at 600cc (pic below) and can finally see some cleavage, but keep in mind no projection and they expand high and wide

 

 

This has more far more emotional than I could have ever expected, I have restrictions and limitations as these are “bubbled wrapped” per say if anything happens then I lose the chance of implants and may have to start over and there is a whole host of problems that can go wrong. I am ready to go back to work, ready to be Me. As I said I realized tonight that I need to take the time for myself, my whole body changed forever and I deserve some time to grieve and accept. I feel like I let everyone down because I haven’t been as strong as I thought I could be, because I just didn’t “bounce” back, most important I am losing the “Kathy” that I have learned to love. I know it will all work out, I know that I will be ok, but I also have accepted that I am not ok at this moment. I am tear filled as I write this because anyone that personally knows me, knows that this is not me. I will say that I am proud for  being transparent and sticking to my promise to be honest throughout this whole ordeal even though I am a private person and it is way out of my comfort zone, but if it helps one person or my kids later on, it’s all worth it.

 

“Every storm runs out of rain” and I am ready for mine to have the rainbow at the end.