“It appears that the next event is breast reconstruction!”
What I have discovered is that “reconstruction” is an ongoing process. Like The South after the Civil War, which took many years to recover, my wife is slowly recovering from the surgery, chemotherapy – and now the initial surgery to put in the spacers.
As I’ve
documented before, THAT surgery necessitated a few nights of sheer agony, followed
by several weeks of rebuilding strength and then regular injections of saline solution
in order to stretch the skin so that the ACTUAL implants could be placed some
time in November or December.
We are now at
some two years and four months after the initial double mastectomy.
Reconstruction in The South took anywhere from twelve to fourteen to “it’s not done yet”…
How long will
breast reconstruction last?
Not forever, that’s for certain! There are already signs that things are proceeding apace. After a “triple fill” of saline in the expanders, the increase in size is noticeable and while there’s quite a bit of soreness and tenderness and an obvious sense of stretching involved, there is also a sense of “completion” that I’ve noticed as well.
While we never stopped “winking and butt tweaking” during this time, the winking is now proceeding to raising eyebrows. There’s a sense of a return to normalcy. While doctor visits will be something that will last “forever” as blood tests and other tests will be a part of the new normal, dealing with the after effects of breast cancer have become integrated into life rather than something that happens in panic mode or has to be considered carefully.
While I loathe
the path we’ve had to take to get here, I love the fact that we are NOW here
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