Week 14 | shutupaboutit

I am happy to report that things haven’t been any crazier, wilder, busier, or necrotic since my nipple reconstruction and scar revision on Friday. As I previously posted, I kind of came home, hit the ground running, napped, woke up woozy, repeated.

The past few days I’ve been a little more sore along my abdominal scar. I’m a little swollen and tender there. Having to wear pants (because it’s still winter in Seattle) causes a lot of friction and irritation along my scar revision. Also, the girls have been demanding that I carry them everywhere the past two days, so having 2 toddlers resting on my scar revision sites isn’t helping along Drs. Louie and Liu’s work any. I’m hoping for the absolute best, but my scar revision, in all honesty, has taken a beating in the past 48 hours. Bothered as it may be, my level of discomfort is easily managed with Tylenol.

I am still pretty neurotic about my reconstructed nipples (“newpples”). I open my surgical camisole about 5 times a day to make sure one hasn’t fallen off, isn’t being compressed by a slipped wad of gauze, or something else equally dramatic. When I was able to take off and change my dressings from the hospital, I was about 0.05 ml short on Crazy and decided I didn’t have to make the new dressings look exactly like the ones I was discharged with. And, in all honesty, I would’ve plowed through all of the supplies they sent me home with just trying to get to something even close to these:

06/25/12 – Newpple protection

I have 4 x 4 gauze pads with little holes cut in the middle of them for the newpple to poke through. I stack those up until they clear the tip of the nip, and then put another (whole) gauze pad over the top and tape it to me. Then I toss on my surgical camisole for support but not too much constricting force on the tender ninja stars (just wait; you’ll see).

06/25/12 – Surgical camisole

(Advanced warning to those who do not want to witness the gore…it gets pretty intimate and gorey from here onward! Take your leave now lest your precious eyes be polluted!)

Mike helped me do the first dressing change and wanted to be there for the big reveal.

06/25/12 – Husbandly duties

We were both pleasantly surprised to find that I’d been sent home with two well crafted ninja stars to add to our home defense collection!

06/25/12 – HIYA!

Even with the dried blood, scabbing, wild style steri-strips, and stitches, they look like they’ll be damn convincing when all is said and done. I am certain that until either one of my plastic surgeons say, “You can’t mess them up from here on out”, I won’t relax about them falling off or otherwise failing. This part of the process has been so intimidating to me! I am so worried about it because I think that without the sensation of pain (no nerves post-mastectomy), I won’t know immediately if they’re necrotic, injured, infected, et cetera. So, it oddly is the one time through this whole process I am wishing I were able to feel more pain. Although, I wonder if I still had some sensation in the nipple reconstructions sites I would still be panicked if I was feeling pain (too much pain?). Who knows? I’m a nervous nelly about these things…because they can FALL OFF. So, I have nothing superbly interesting to post about the newpples, just that they’re coming along and hopefully healing well and never, ever necrotic, infected, or otherwise failing. Close ups are below. Avert your eyes if you plan on having sausage soon.