A Farewell to Boobs (as I know them anyway)

Tomorrow is my reconstruction surgery. As I write this I'm sitting in a cafe awaiting a plate of brioche french toast & strawberries. (It's about 130PM - - I specifically searched in advance for a place, close to my hair salon, that sells french toast all day.) I'm trying to fill myself up because last time I did a poor job of eating enough before the midnight deadline. I feel like a Gremlin with this "nothing after midnight" rule. Not being able to eat the morning of my mastectomy made me super cranky. And then I didn't eat for nearly 36 hours because I was "NPO" (non per os aka nothing by mouth) until the morning AFTER my surgery! Even then it was just a collection of disgusting orange flavored "clears" like jello and italian ice. My surgery is at 730AM and I have to be there at 6AM, which means we have to leave by 5AM and up even earlier. Yeesh! Yesterday I decided that if I needed to be ready for surgery and in bed so early in the evening then I wanted the whole day off from work today. I scrambled to get all my work done for the week. This morning I slept late before coming into the city for my hair blow-out (so I don't have to worry about lifting my arms to style my hair while I'm recovering). I visited D at his job before running an errand for him and now I'm sitting here just trying to relax and get into some sort of calm, positive mindset before heading into surgery.

Meanwhile, since my last post I have had my IUD (intrauterine device) implanted. Yowza! I was expecting a pinch during the procedure and maybe some cramping for a few hours after. My doctor told us it would be a "walk in the park" compared to what I've been through recently. I have no idea what she was talking about. It was BAD. As the doctor warned that "now you'll feel some pressure and like a bad cramp," an intense pain spread through my abdomen and before I knew it I was climbing up the wall. I think I squeezed all the blood right out of D's hand. The doctor asked me if I could please try to relax my butt cheeks. Fortunately, the whole procedure lasted just a couple minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the night was even worse than the procedure itself. In the doc's office they gave me four Advil and I took them all. Almost immediately, severe cramping set in. The train ride home was excrutiating. Thank goodness D was with me. At home I was uncomfortable all night. I could hardly enjoy my dinner. By bedtime the pain was so bad I couldn't get comfortable at all and was really anxious. I had to be up early the next morning for some pre-surgical testing and a final appointment with the plastic surgeon. I couldn't get to sleep. As much as I hate the drug, I ended up taking a Valium in order to get to sleep. Somehow, the Valium neither knocked me out nor made the pain go away but it did make this feeling of calm come over me that allowed me to get to sleep. It was like the first drug the anesthesiologist gave me before my mastectomy. His words were "first I'm going to give you something that's going to make life a little easier," and boy did it! The Valium did the same thing the night of the terrible IUD cramps. Today is two weeks since getting the IUD implanted and believe it or not the bad cramps only started to subside in the past 24-36 hours. They didn't stick around all day every day. They would come and go and get worse at night. But they were definitely there. I called the doctor Monday and she said it is actually normal and my body is getting used to having some foreign object lodged in my uterus. I guess that makes sense.

The next day at our appointment with the plastic surgeon I asked so many questions that I think I drove the doctor crazy. I also think I insulted him on some personal level when I said I wasn't interested in getting a fake nipple, which he highly recommends. In order to end the conversation I told him I was willing to be open-minded and allow myself to change my mind later if my feelings changed. (I don't see myself changing my mind later.) Regardless, in the end I felt I aired out all my concerns and now I feel like I can go into surgery completely confident that he will do what he deems best but also keep my concerns in mind at the same time. Wish me luck!