Found this picture on another blog and thought it was perfect for mine: Live the Charmed Life
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Clean Boob of Health
If you hadn't guessed by my month-long departure from this blog, we finally went on that long-awaited, much-deserved vacation I had been looking forward to. We went to Brussels, with day trips to Bruges, Leuven & Amsterdam, for about 9 days in May and had a wonderful time. Usually when we go on vacation I can immediately forget about everything I'm leaving behind and just bask in the relaxation and fun and culture of the trip. This time, it took me until at least half-way through the trip to finally start to relax and shed all the stress I had brought with me. Leading up to the trip I had been trying to finish up all my coursework, from my two incomplete classes at school. I had assignments and exams to makeup and was such a stressed-out mess that my face broke out in stress-induced dermatitis (according to my new dermatologist). We've been back from Brussels just over two weeks now and I'm finally beginning to feel like a normal person again. And it's summer, my favorite time of year, so I'm the happiest girl in America right now!
Today was my first post-mastectomy, post-implants mammogram of my right breast. I was really nervous about squishing my implant in that crazy machine. I had to sign a paper stating that I understand that while it is extremely uncommon, there is a possibility of implant rupture and further, that the benefit of the screening outweighs the risk of an implant rupture. It was explained to me that normally only two images are taken of each breast (only one breast in my case), but that with implants four images are taken: two of the whole breast (front & side) and two of just as much breast tissue as they can image while pushing the implant as far into the back of your chest as possible (front & side). I have had a mammogram before so I wasn't surprised by the yanking and pulling, followed by incredible pressure; but when the technician had to push the implant out of the way in order to take a picture of just breast tissue alone, that was definitely a bit uncomfortable. In the end all that matters is that when the doctor called me to her office to review the results of the exam, she gave me a clean boob of health! Woohoo!
My technician was a young girl who's friend was just diagnosed with breast cancer. The friend, who is only 37, has two young children. I told her to please tell her friend about Young Survival Coalition, so I think it's fitting that I give another "shout out" here to the YSC. Young Survival Coalition's website and support group meetings were very helpful to me before each of my surgeries. Check out their website here.
Today was my first post-mastectomy, post-implants mammogram of my right breast. I was really nervous about squishing my implant in that crazy machine. I had to sign a paper stating that I understand that while it is extremely uncommon, there is a possibility of implant rupture and further, that the benefit of the screening outweighs the risk of an implant rupture. It was explained to me that normally only two images are taken of each breast (only one breast in my case), but that with implants four images are taken: two of the whole breast (front & side) and two of just as much breast tissue as they can image while pushing the implant as far into the back of your chest as possible (front & side). I have had a mammogram before so I wasn't surprised by the yanking and pulling, followed by incredible pressure; but when the technician had to push the implant out of the way in order to take a picture of just breast tissue alone, that was definitely a bit uncomfortable. In the end all that matters is that when the doctor called me to her office to review the results of the exam, she gave me a clean boob of health! Woohoo!
My technician was a young girl who's friend was just diagnosed with breast cancer. The friend, who is only 37, has two young children. I told her to please tell her friend about Young Survival Coalition, so I think it's fitting that I give another "shout out" here to the YSC. Young Survival Coalition's website and support group meetings were very helpful to me before each of my surgeries. Check out their website here.
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