Had my first expansion!

Yesterday I had an appointment with my plastic surgeon, and I almost tried to postpone it since I knew my drain wouldn't be removed.  It wasn't, because it was still over 30 ml every 24 hours, but I did have my first expansion!  That was unexpected, I didn't think that process was going to start until after my drain was removed.  I was a little scared, especially when he said the needle would go through the muscle and that hurts for some patients.  I was lucky, though, because for me it didn't hurt at all.  I did feel it go through the muscle, but it wasn't painful.  I could feel myself stretch as he put in saline, but it wasn't too uncomfortable.  I was a little sore for the rest of the day, but nothing unbearable.

This morning when I woke up I was in more pain than usual, but it got better after I took a Motrin.  I think it was because my muscle is still getting used to accommodating a bigger implant.  He put in 50 cc when he placed the tissue expander after my mastectomy, and he put in 50 cc yesterday, so now I'm up to 100!  [Side note, apparently 1 cc = 1 ml.  I learned that today, or maybe yesterday.]  Still smaller than the other side, but that's okay.  The expander looks pretty ridiculous, but it'll start to look better the more it gets filled.  I've heard everything is a lot better after the exchange surgery - much more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.  I'm looking forward to that.

Yesterday morning (around 5am) I woke up in excruciating pain.  It was so weird, I had been feeling very little pain lately and had been off the narcotics for about a week.  It felt almost as bad as it did right after my surgery.  I checked to make sure everything looked okay, and it did.  I guess it was just because I had gone on and on about how good I felt that my body decided to remind me that I did just have a major surgery.  I was able to get myself up and I took two of my pain pills, and finally I was able to fall back asleep.  Thankfully that pain hasn't returned.

Earlier today I started feeling pretty nauseous, I'm not sure what that was about.  I took a Zofran (anti-nausea pill) and took a nap and felt a lot better when I woke up.  I went out to dinner with Chris and Zahra, that was nice.  Now I'm being good and resting :)  My drain outputs have been a lot lower, I think I might even be able to have my drain removed tomorrow!  We shall see.

I know that I have basically no sensation in my right breast, but today I finally made the realization that I can't feel temperature changes.  My hands were freezing and I touched it and couldn't feel it at all.  It's such a bizarre feeling (err, lack thereof, lol.)  It's kind of cool in a way.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but I forget what it was.  I don't think this is what it was, but also, I got in trouble for not consistently taking my antibiotics 4x a day like I'm supposed to.  I do sometimes, but other times I had been taking it 3x a day.  I figured as long as I finished the whole bottle (60 pills!) eventually that it would be okay.  Of course not, I should have known there is a reason for prescribing the dosage that they do.  Silly me.  So now I have to take another week's worth of antibiotics on top of the rest of the first bottle that I have to finish.  That's 28 extra pills!  I'm being diligent now, I don't want to get in trouble again and I don't want to get an infection from this drain.  That would suck.

Also, I realized that I never followed up on here about the biopsy I had on my left breast before my mastectomy.  I know I posted it on Facebook, and so did my mom, so most of you already know, but in case you missed it: that turned out to be a Fibroadenoma as suspected.  So, completely benign, it doesn't have to be removed or anything.  Yay :)

Okay, that's all for now.  Whenever I put a heart on here it posts with all this weird stuff behind it, but oh well.  <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">