Vanity Fair

July 13, 2022

Vanity Fair

I had my plastic surgery follow up today, so we made a real date night out of it for the first time in a VERY long time! We forgot to get pics, so we took this one while pulled over for an ambulance on the way home… 😆 We had tea at Tea’s Me Cafe, did a little shopping at the Fashion Mall, and had dinner at Nesso, which was amazing!

My plastic surgery appointment went pretty well. I thought he would be more impressed with how well I’ve healed, but he noted that there was a significant amount of damage. That said, he was pleased that the placement of my implant was not negatively impacted, which can happen and can be very bad. He said that he is comfortable doing my exchange surgery at 6 months instead of a year (!!!!!), so I get these boulder-esque tissue expanders out this winter instead of next summer! I also asked if he could remove my port, and he said as long as oncology says I don’t need it anymore (I don’t!) he would be happy to. I am really glad, because the port scar looks pretty bad right now, and as a plastic surgeon, I know he will try to make it look as nice as possible.

I went shopping for boobs, which was super weird. The implants will have a less impactful “profile” (so they won’t stick straight out so much and should settle in a more natural way). There were different degrees of squishy to choose from, but they weren’t significantly different. I chose the firmest one with hopes that there will be less wrinkling. All silicone implants can have wrinkling, but when they are just used for breast enhancement, the natural breast tissue will cover it. I only have skin, so wrinkles will show through. That’s not ideal, so hopefully the ones I've chosen will be more cooperative.

It is not entirely clear what size they will be. He will order an assortment of sizes, and then will see how much room is left after the radiation damage. He will place the appropriate size and then do the other side to match. Since I don’t have a lot of “meat” on my upper chest, the implants make a shelf at the top. It won’t be as bad as it is with the tissue expanders, but it will still be there. He said we can take some fat from elsewhere and do a little fat grafting to soften the edges. It will take a few surgeries, though, because it will form a hard glob if too much is done at once. All surgeries, though, (including the swap!) will be outpatient!!! The swap will be more significant than the fat grafting, but all will be fairly minor- especially compared to my mastectomy!

I don’t have much else to report, aside from the fact that my chemo hair is nutty. It is growing at all different rates, has a weird, flat part down the center that cannot be tamed with product, and is extremely soft, white, and gray. It is hard to see the actual weirdness in pics since they aren’t 3D, but I just see this former style of my dad’s every time I look in the mirror…