Saturday, May 19, 2012

One more trip and counting!

So after five months, I am down to one more doctors appointment and then I am...wait for it.....DONE!!!!

That's right. Barring any major catastrophe, I am a completed woman again. I have one more appointment with Dr. S and it is really only for him to take his "after" pictures of his masterpiece, or rather masterpieces since I do have two boobies!

Dr. S was correct and after the swelling went down, the nipples followed right along with it. They are fantastic and completely realistic looking. I am still amazed. I was worried that I would regret that part of the surgery, and I don't at all. Especially once he did the tattooing. Talk about strange ( as if the rest of this whole procedure has been normal!). I went in and the doctor asked me if I wanted more pink or brown in my tattoos. What a question! I mean, who actually gets to decide the color of their areolas! Apparently I do :) Since I love youtubing everything before it happens, I had youtubed nipple tattooing. There were too many hot pink nipples out there so I chose a more brown color.

Dr. S asked me if I wanted to be numbed before he began. And I calmly answered YES!! Even though my experience has been really awesome, if I can avoid any sort of pain then sign me up. The numbing didn't feel great, although I consider this a good thing because it means that I have more feeling then I thought I would. After the numbing the nurse came in and rubbed some color on my breasts to see if I liked it. It was pretty dark, but she said that it would fade. I instantly had visions of the National Geographic pictures of women from far away with the really dark nipples, however chose to trust what she was saying as I haven't been let down yet. Dr. S came in and plugged up his tattoo gun and the tattooing began. It was different then the tattoo I have on my side ( a flower in case you are wondering). The ink was not in the gun but rather he turned the radio on to some Prince, slathered a bunch of ink on my skin, took the gun and went to town. It didn't hurt due to the numbing, but it was an odd sensation of pressure and movement. Around and around and around he went adding more ink from time to time. And then, done. Bandaged and ready to go home.

I was a chicken and didn't look for a full day. I was worried. But finally I removed the bandages and looked. It was a little bloody and definitely darker then I wanted, but they looked like real nipples. And as the days passed and they healed (and peeled, gross!), the color faded some and I can honestly say I am 100% satisfied.

So now here I am. I feel like a complete woman again. It has been five months since my surgery. To some that may seem like a long time. But in reality, it's not. And for me to feel as awesome as I do, it's really no time at all. I am running, lifting and tossing and carrying my baby, kayaking, working out, hanging out, LIVING LIFE!! It is fantastic. The only thing so far that I have found that feels pretty uncomfortable is pushups. But lets be honest, who really enjoys pushups and is that REALLY taking away from my quality of life? No way!!

I know that I will always have some numbness. Some twinges of pain/weird feelings. Scars that go across my breasts. But even in five short months, those scars have faded. And there are days that if I don't look at myself naked, I actually forget for awhile that I have even had the surgery. How cool is that?! I think it's pretty darned amazing.

So what's next? I can't forget that I have to worry about taking my ovaries out as well. I had my yearly OBGYN appointment last week and I am pretty sure my doctor said it best...."lets get these ovaries making a baby before we take them out!"  :)

So we will see what the future holds. Thank you so much to everyone who reads my blog. You are all amazing. And for those going through this, stay strong! You can do this!

T-minus 6 days until my last appointment!!

2 comments:

  1. So awesome! Wow! You are giving me the courage I need to keep going forward. I am looking at an oophrectomy in the fall (when I am done breastfeeding) and the PBM in Jan. It's upon me now, and I'm getting more frightened to do it... Thank you for your blog!
    jakopisek.blogspot.com

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  2. Thanks so much for the step by step of the nipple tatooing. That's helpful to read, since I am leaning more towards having a non-nipple sparing mastectomy. I really appreciate your blog!

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