Fipples Nipples

Sorry...I know you all were hoping for a picture of my foobs..Instead you got this ugly picture of me..

Hellooooo! Yes, I am still alive. I know you all have been wondering where I have been/why I haven't written in so long...Well, the honest truth is that this REALLY crappy thing happens sometimes....And that REALLY crappy thing is called LIFE. Between being a full time mom, working full time as a nurse, being a full time maid/cleaning lady at my home/personal cook, and everything in between, I have just about FREAKED THE fuck out. (To be quite honest.)  Nothing serious has happened,  just a bunch of LIFE, and a few nervous breakdowns and hormonal psychotic moments, multiple times a day... So yea. That's my excuse........

But the good news is that on Monday, I am GETTING NIPPLES!!!!!!!! YAY! This will be the last step to my reconstruction process. (Not counting areola tattoos) There really is light at the end of the tunnel. And the light at the end of that tunnel really resembles nipples. Hehe.   ( . )  ( . )

I am not getting nervous about getting nipples at all, but it's weird and kind of unnerving because I have become so used to seeing myself in the mirror, looking like mastectomy barbie doll. Being a woman, being a nurse, the overanalytical thoughts have begun to float inside my head, and are overtaking my brain lately....Thoughts like-"What if the nipples, or "fipples" (fake nipples) don't look right and it messes EVERYTHING I have had up to this point, up?".....Thoughts like-"What if the bloodflow to the fipples isn't adequate and one of my fipples falls off in the middle of the night and my dogs eat it?"  Thoughts like-"So my fipples are going to be ETERNALLY hard??"...Thoughts like-"What if the fipples deflate/flatten out? What's the point??" No pun intended there....Hehe....Thoughts like-"What if I don't like the fipples? It's not like I can just warm them up and they'll go away....." GAHHHHHH!!!!

But seriously. It's scary. Every fucking step to getting your breasts reconstructed is scary as hell. Yea, they are just boobs, and like I've said before....Boobs don't make you who you are.....But would you want your nipple falling off in the middle of the night? Would you want your husband to gently caress and kiss your nipple one night and then get a mouth full of nipple? This is serious stuff....

But on to the more serious/medical stuff.....Because if I keep freaking about my future fipples falling off, then I am not going to sleep at all tonight. And you probably won't either....And you probably aren't going to look at your own nipples the same way for a while, huh?? 

 My plastic surgeon that performed my surgeries will be doing my nipple reconstructions in her office. She said it will take about an hour, and she will only use local anesthesia. There's no need for general anesthesia because I have no feeling at all on my boobs, due to the fact that they cut them off (I had a double mastectomy...DUH!, and I now have silicone implants...(FYI-if you are new to my blog, you need to go WAY back to my older posts to catch up...Starting in July...) There are places on my foobs that I have some sensation, but over 97.3% of my foobs have absolutely no feeling at all... My doctor said that I won't even require pain medication and can even go shopping afterwards......But then the THOUGHTS enter............

"What if my fipples are bloody for a couple of days? I can't walk around with bloody fipples...that would freak the crap out of people..."

"What if one of the nipples starts falling off and starts taking the skin off my foob with it and I can't feel it? Then my muscle/silicone implant would plop out on the ground randomly...Weird alien shit there."

"What if the doctor accidentally pierces or cuts too deeply into my skin while doing the procedure and ruptures one of my implants????????????

AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So anyways..(See I told you I have multiple psychotic/hormonal moodswings on a daily basis...I warned you!) .She will use a "CV flap" method to form the nipples....She won't have to take skin from any other part of my body or anything like that...The skin that she will use to make the nipples is the skin on my breasts......Here is an illustration of it to kind of give you an idea...



I realize this isn't a boob and a nipple, but you get the idea...

 There's a lot of other methods of "making" nipples, I guess it just depends on the surgeon..And by the way, there is an old school method where they take skin from your VUUULLLLVA and use that skin to make a nipple. My opinion-if your doctor wants to do that method to make a nipple, RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN! And if the surgeon happens to be a man, ask HIM how he would like it if part of his WEEWEE was cut off to make a nipple when there are other, much easier and less painful methods....And then kick him.In the weewee.

I will attempt to take pictures during the procedure because my doctor is just cool like that and lets me do stuff like that, but if not, either way, you know I will be eager to post pictures of my fipples as soon as I can. So stay tuned for Angela's fipples....And remember.......

Go ahead and google "nefarious". I know you want to.

ICE CUBE FOOB SYNDROME

So it has been a little over a week since having these new foobs, and there are some definite changes that I have come to discover with owning silicone foobs.. (Note that I say "foobs" because it is one thing to have silicone breasts-as in god given breasts, still intact with breast tissue and fat, and then have silicone foobs-as in post mastectomy/breast reconstruction, having your boobs removed, and having no breast tissue..It really does make a difference from what I hear and read.)  Well, anyways, this past week has been just weird, and it all surrounds my chest area..Let me explain..

With the weather getting colder, I've noticed something very strange in my foobage area going on...It pretty much feels like I am wearing a wet, cold shirt, BUT only in the chest area, AT ALL TIMES..But when I check to see if my shirt is wet, it's not....WEIRD! Then, you know how in my one of my following posts I wrote about how my hands were always on my chest area since having foobs???? Well...Yea, that still happens, and my hands will be unconsciously feeling myself up, and then I realize that my foobs feel like ice cubes. It's quite disturbing...

But there IS a logical explanation to this weirdness.....Let me explain....

My foobs no longer have blood circulation going through them....They don't have tissue/fat to keep them warm....And because I have SILICONE implants, which are very dense and cannot absorb heat from my body, (unlike saline from saline implants, which would actually make my foobs warmer because saline is not dense and absorbs heat), the warmth from my body cannot reach the top of my foobs, which results in the ICE CUBE FOOB SYNDROME! Which also results in the wet t-shirt contest feeling, too.....Get it? I know, I know....It's a fairly simple concept....But when you are faced with mysterious ice cube tits out of no where, you kind of lose the ability to think clearly....

I guess the plus side of this is that I don't actually have any nipples, because if I did, they would definitely be able to cut glass with how cold my foobs get...

Check out that nip

What are you Full of?

We just got back today from my follow up appointment.(.My post-op appointment, to be exact)..Everything looks good! My poor foobs are starting to bruise, and are in that lovely diarrhea-yellow color bruised stage right now...But they look good. And as far as that lump that had me scared.....(You know, the one that my doctor sent off for biopsy during my surgery, because she found a lump of mystery tissue while taking my expanders out...) Well, it turns out that it was just dead fat tissue (fat necrosis), and nothing serious....THANK GAWD! I was kind of stressing over that. I knew deep down that it was probably going to be nothing, but still, to be faced with "We found a lump and don't know exactly what it was" kind of freaked the fuck out of us after surgery......So yeah...WHEW!

Here is a picture of my foobs, without the steri strips on...(My doctor took them off today.) She also didn't use any stitches, staples or anything...She used internal stitches and being a week out of surgery, and with these scars being reopened, I think they have healed beautifully.....You can see that my left side is still a little higher than the right, but that is because of the swelling, and my doctor thinks that it will settle into where it is supposed to in the upcoming months...You can see the bruising around the scars....The lovely diarrhea yellow color...

6 days post exchange surgery.

It feels weird to finally be done with the breast part of this whole journey...No more expanders...No more fills....No more.....The next step-Nipples......That is another blog....Not for tonight though...Not tonight......

I have just been soooooooo exhausted lately. I don't know if I am trying to do too much, not allowing myself to rest, or what, but I get so irritable at certain times of the day because I am so tired..I can barely keep my eyes open. (Of course, except for now, and it is almost midnight....I should be in bed!)  I understand that it hasn't even been a week since I had my surgery, and that I need to allow my body to heal, and I need to rest, yadda yadda yadda, but come on.....I'm not some geriatric patient who needs a daily nap...I feel like such a slacker when I have to wimp out and go actually rest my eyes for a while during the day...I don't work like that...And plus, when you have a 6 year old and a 4 year old, it doesn't work like that either.....Things have to be done...And dear ol' husband just won't do a lot of the things that mommy does.....Like laundry, dishes, cooking, making beds, sweeping, etc.....The show must go on.....I ain't no geriatric!

ON THE OTHER HAND.........I absolutely DO feel like a geriatric, in the aspect of being so constipated that it has completely consumed my days.......Yes...This happened to me the last time I had surgery...I went 8 days without taking a shit after I had my first surgery, and it was possibly the worst experience EVER to physically go through...This time, it's about the same....It is awful!

I am so full of shit that I am afraid to eat solid food because I don't want to" back it up" anymore than it already is inside of me...Is this what old people go through? SHEESH! And I even started taking stool softeners before my surgery this time, to try and prevent this problem.....I have been doing everything I tell my own patients to do when they tell me they are "backed up".....I've been drinking tons of water....I've been taking my colace (stool softeners), and MOM (milk of magnesia), I've been trying to move around......It is just due to the pain medications, and the general anesthesia I had for the surgery....I guess that anesthesia really puts my bowels to sleep..For like a week......SHIT! I am going to stop taking my pain medications, put up with the pain, just so I can take a shit! Yea, it's that bad...

Sorry....I know you just wanted to know all of that....But this is real stuff....lt REALLY happens to lots of people after surgery! And just because I am a woman, with beautiful boobs, that doesn't mean I can't talk about being full of shit! We are all full of shit at one point or other....(Some of us are just more than others...)

Here's me, at my post op appointment.And yes..I am full of shit..

Just Call Me a Softie

I officially have squishy boobs now! YOOHOO! (Or should I say "YOOFOOB!"?)   My exchange surgery this past Tuesday went well, and I am still recovering....Slowly.....The pain is definitely there, and yes, the immediate difference in chest pressure is noticed.In a good way..I can take a deep breath without feeling like my foobs are going to crush a rib or something....It's nice. I was just expecting this surgery to be a little bit easier than it was, but I guess I still can't complain, because lt was ALL my choice to have my boobs whacked off in the first place...



Marking all the imperfections to fix on my foobs bf surgery



I have been wanting to write this blog for the past couple of days since my surgery, but I have just been in a lot of pain due to my plastic surgeon having to do a lot of extra work on my left side...The expander on the left side never settled into the muscle-pocket as evenly as the right side, and always sat higher on my chest....(As you can see in the picture to the right.) You can see where my PS (plastic surgeon) marked on my left foob, where to cut into the muscle more, and where to take off the extra skin.....The right foob was good.....

Oh, and by the way after my mastectomies, the only spot on both of my breasts where my nerves have regenerated and I have ANY feeling at all now, is OF COURSE, on my left foob, right where she cut off that extra skin....So yea...That's why I'm having a lot of pain... Generally, after you have a mastectomy, you don't ever get sensation back into your breasts...Sometimes those nerves can regenerate, and sometimes not...Everyone is different...



Damn! Look at those things! WTF are they??



Anyways....This was still my foobs with the expanders in, before the surgery...Bryan and I were waiting in the little curtained area, waiting for the anesthesia people to come while we took these pictures....My exchange surgery was done at an outpatient surgical suite of the hospital, and took about 3 hours....I was not at all nervous for this surgery, compared to the first surgery. Having had to deal with the daily pain of HUGE expanders in my chest and stuff, I was ready to get rid of those suckers...I was totally not sad to say "goodbye" to these boobs....

It's funny...Bryan and I were talking while I was waiting for the doctors, and I mentioned how weird and ironic it was that I was once again saying goodbye to my breasts....How many women get to say goodbye to their breasts twice? The first time I said goodbye to my breasts, it was much more emotional...They were my god-given breasts.....They were the breasts that were potentially going to kill me....But I still was sad to see them go......On Tuesday, when I said goodbye to the "expander breasts", I had no emotional tie to them, whatsoever....I wasn't sad...I was happy to get rid of them.I know that I have made the right choice to have my breasts removed, I haven't even given cancer a chance to reside in my body, in my breasts....Fuck you, cancer! (I hope.....You'll read why in a minute.)

Well...Anyways....Here are some stupid pictures while we were waiting.....And no....I had no medication at this point to make me goofy.....I'm just weird..... :)






Ready for surgery!



My lovely husband.......



The magical hose into my body.



The "little black box" that has anesthesia drugs in it....

Okay...So finally...After like an hour of waiting, the anesthesiologist came in, and I signed some papers saying that I agreed to the side effects of anesthesia (sore throat, headache, dying, etc), and I told Bryan that I loved him, and then the anesthesia guy gave me a small amount of Versed through my I.V. (The "I don't give a damn" medication) Then they wheeled me back to the operating room...I remember this whole ride....I remember getting into the OR, and telling the anesthesiologist that it smelled like a fireplace and then laughing...They all started laughing at me, and then then said it was the medicine....Then I told them to not mess up on my boobs and they started laughing more, and I went to sleep.....How nice.....

Sweet Dreams, Big foobed Weirdo!

So I woke up a couple of hours later.....My chest was actually not the first thing that was hurting....My head was POUNDING! (Damn side effects from the anesthesia..) The recovery nurse was awesome and was right on top of helping control my pain, so she gave me all the pain meds I needed to control the headache, and once that went away, the pain from the surgery started setting in..especially on that left side..And yes, MUSCLE SPASMS occurred, too! And they hurt, I think worse, than the last surgery. They feel like intense lightning bolts, and this time, they are under the muscles in my armpits....Awful shit, let me tell ya....

I guess while I was in recovery, my doctor had come out and talked to Bryan that she found a lump on my left side, above the tissue expander.....I have felt this lump for about a month or so now, and at my pre-op, I showed it to the doctor, and she assumed it was just an internal stitch that had ripped or something...Well, during the surgery, when she opened me up, she saw the lump, and didn't know what it was...She sent it off for biopsy....Bryan debated about whether or not to tell me......So obviously this has me a little freaked out....You know...Having your breasts cut off, and not having to "think" you have to worry about lumps in your breasts anymore, and then something like this happens?......Shit......I don't know.....We will get the results of the biopsy soon.....

ANYWAYS! We got to go home about 1.5 hours after I was in recovery, and that night was GAWD AWFUL....My doctor gave me vicodin for pain medication, and it did absolutely nothing for my pain....I slept 1 hour that first night after my surgery....As soon as my doctor's office opened that morning, I called and told them that I needed something stronger....We had to wait in Albuquerque for about 6 hours, just so we could pick up the written prescription for Percocet from my doctor, because she was in surgery all day long, and narcotics cannot just be called in by a nurse...(I know! I'm a nurse...You have to have a written prescription)...We live in Carlsbad, which is a 5 hour drive from Albuquerque, and we had to wait that long, just for a prescription....BLAH FUCK POOP SHIT! Whatever...I got it, and it is working much better for my pain....(FYI-A lot of people have asked me about pain medications, I guess since I'm a nurse, and bc of this blog..........Percocet is stronger than Vicodin.....APAP means acetaminophin=tylenol.........And Yes, pain medications can make you itch...They make me itch to the point that I have to take benadryl with them!)

Taken the night after surgery with dressings intact

So here are the pictures you've been waiting for....Pictures of my new, squishy boobs....And no, I will not call them "Fishy boobs" now that they are squishy foobs.....


 *I don't have drains, thank god!
*My doctor said I don't have to wear a bra, and can wear one when I feel comfortable wearing one!
*I can't take tub baths for 2 weeks! (I can take a shower 3 days after surgery, which is today!! Totally looking forward to it, because my hair is so oily, I could fry a chicken with the oil from it!) And yea, I sat in the tub to get my bottom half clean and to shave already...I just didn't get my boobs wet at all...That's why they don't want you to take a tub bath...)
*I don't have any wound care/dressings to change...I just took the dressings off that are on the picture above, 2 days after surgery, and now they have steri-strips on the scars...Those stay on until they fall off on their own.....

So here are my new, silicone filled foobs....I'm a softie now!!!



My new foobies...Steri strips cover the scars...Much more natural, don't you think?







EXCHANGE surgery!!

So I don't think I have mentioned, but my next surgery is on December 7th.....YAY! I will be having these tissue expanders taken out, and will have silicone implants put in.....It's called "Exchange surgery." And I am NOT NERVOUS at all, to tell you the truth...I am so anxious and so ready to get these damn rocks out of my chest. Seriously. From what I hear, this surgery is a piece of cake compared to the first one, so I have nothing to worry about, or to stress out about...I am so ready for it!!

I cannot wait to have these tissue expanders out...Like I've said before, having tissue expanders is like having two huge rocks sewn up inside of you, and the pain is constant, and crushing, and uncomfortable, and shitty, and it just plain sucks ass.....To have squishy boobs, uh, foobs, again.....AWWWW.....To be able to take a deep breath again without my muscles spasming, or without a crushing feeling on my chest.....AWWWW.....To be able to sneeze in peace again without breaking a rib...AWWWWW....I am so ready. 

Oh....And the reason I've been having such pain lately is because, apparently, I ripped my internal stitches, around the Alloderm or something around the expanders....I guess after my first surgery, I went back to doing "normal" stuff too soon....I went back to work 2 weeks after....I was cleaning my pool, picking up dog shit, doing wound care/wound vacs at work (I'm an RN), and vacuuming waaaay too soon....I guess they have those restrictions for a reason.....My doctor gave me STRICT instructions to NOT DO ANYTHING for 2 weeks after this upcoming surgery.....I sure hope I can follow those rules....But it's kind of hard when you have a 4 year old, a 6 year old, and then a husband who doesn't really help out that much....Harsh, but true....

So yea......I'm ready to exchange out my foobs....Oh....And get this.....I am supposed to start my period on the day I have surgery.....Wow...Wonderful, huh? 

TitTalk Time.

The past couple of nights, well mornings actually, I've been waking up FLAT on my stomach. Well, this presents a serious problem when you have tissue expanders for boobs, because, well....Let me put it this way....Go find two big river rocks....Like the sizes of baby heads...(I know, that sounds totally weird/morbid, but my foobs are about EACH the size of baby heads...Sorry) Put these big baby head rocks in your bra, and then sleep on your stomach all night....Wake up in the morning, and see how wonderful you feel. It won't be so "wonderful", let me tell ya....It is actually excruciatingly painful.

I guess my body is sick and tired of sleeping on its' side, so it's gone back to sleeping on its' stomach. (See how I am not taking the blame for all of this...It's my body's fault. NOT mine!) Maybe I'm sleeping just so damn hard that I don't even realize that I am smashing my foobs in my sleep...I don't know, but it's got to stop, because I think sleeping like this is causing the edge of my expanders to get caught/rub against my sternum, and THAT sucks ass! Not only is that painful, it is just a weird feeling that I can't even explain. It's almost like having a tweezer-scrape-against-your-eyeball type of sensation...(Not that I've ever had a tweezer scrape against my eyeball or anything, but I could only imagine!)

But enough about the whining and being a titbag, I've been getting very anxious/ready for my exchange surgery. I am so ready to have squishy foobs, and to be able to take a deep breath without feeling like crushing my ribs. Like I've said before, I'm ready to get on with this next chapter of my life, and so on...

 In the midst of all of my reconstruction/recovery/returning back to work TOO soon/ getting back to work/just living life, I am always reminded of the reason why I am going through all of this. Every time I look in the mirror and see my breasts, which technically aren't even breasts anymore, which don't even have nipples anymore and are held together with 2 long horizontal scars across them, I am reminded of my decision to want to sacrifice them, in order to hopefully save my life.  This BRCA2 gene mutation within me may just sound like a scientific weird thing to the common person. But to me, it is something that killed my mom. Because of this mutation, my mom got breast cancer and died. (She was also BRCA2+) Because of this mutation, women die everyday from breast cancer. But not me. By having my breasts removed (before a tumor went haywire or something) my chance of getting breast cancer has decreased by 90%. I'm not it's prey. I won't be it's victim. Not anymore.

These Boulders Upon my Chest

This is what a bilateral mastectomy, (non nipple sparing, skin sparing) looks like. WITH immediate reconstruction, using tissue expanders!!! OH JOY!

 Since I am completely done with my tissue expansion phase, I wanted to take a look at my first picture of my foobs, and compare it to the monstrous boulders that lie inside of me currently. The picture above is the picture that was taken back in July, just a few days after my surgery. At the time of my surgery, my plastic surgeon put 260cc's of saline into the expanders. This usually doesn't happen in most cases, but because I live far away from my doctor, and would have to return every 2 weeks for my fills, she wanted to go ahead and give me a head start to my fills. (THANK YOU, Dr.Tsao Wu!!!) The weird ass looking thing in the middle of my foobs was the little cord that I called the "pain pump" that was inserted under my tissue to continuously leak local anesthetic for about 3-4 days to help decrease the pain in that area.


During these 3 months, with bi-weekly trips up to Albuquerque, NM to get my expanders filled, (which is a 550 mile round trip, WITH a 6 year old and a 4 year old, mind you,) I am so happy that I am done with the "fill" chapter of all of this. Yes, the pain is still something that I have to deal with on almost a constant basis, and that's fine. I'm just so glad that we don't have to make those trips like that every 2 weeks anymore. (But like I always say, this is what I wanted and felt I had to do to prevent myself and my family from having to invite cancer into our lives, so I guess I can't complain at all, huh...)  OH, and yes, my doctor is freaking awesome!


This is what my foobs look like NOW! 500cc's of saline inserted into the expanders. I am now just waiting for my exchange surgery. IMPATIENTLY waiting, that is.



Hooter Humer

I was thinking about some random, (TOTALLY RANDOM), stuff today while I was driving around, working.....And I decided to share this totally random shit with YOU! So here goes...

*What would happen if I went in to Hooters and applied for a job? First of all, I don't even technically have breasts, and this establishment is best known for its' beautiful women and their big, beautiful, volumptious HOOTERS. I don't have boobs..I have foobs...They are totally not real breasts...But they look real. They definitely do not feel real....There are no nipples on my breasts, and if I didn't tell you that I had a double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction, there is no way that you would be able to tell....Except for maybe a hooters master? The owl?? WTF?

Duh

*What would happen if I decided to be stupid as shit and go into a tattoo place to get my non-existent nipple pierced? They would take me to the back, *hopefully* sterilize their equipment, tell my to take my top off, which I would, and then WTF!!!??? NO NIPPLES! They would be scarred for life. No pun intended...  ;)

This lady is getting felt up by some random ladies...

*These damn tissue expanders are like rocks.....(Like I've said a million times before.) They don't move...What would happen if I went to have a pap smear by a random ob/gyn doctor who didn't know anything about my past medical history (which I would NEVER LET HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE) , and get a manual breast exam done by them during a pap smear appt or something......They would feel my foob and be like "HOLY SHIT! WTF! Why is it so hard? That is totally not normal!" Haha. Totally random..I know.

*I should totally wear a shear or see through t-shirt sometime.....(Obviously with no bra...I don't have to wear one.) I'm sure I'd get some weird looks and really let down some perverted men hoping to see some nipple action.

This is totally not me....

So see.....Totally random shit....Weird as crap.....But I had to share it with you. You are very welcome.

Find a Cure...For Our Daughter's Sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the first things I thought about when I found out that I was BRCA2+ was whether or not my little girl carried this same dreaded gene as I do....My mom was BRCA2+, had breast cancer, and was told that her little girl, (ME), would probably carry the same gene as her. Now that I know that I am in fact BRCA2+, obviously, I now wonder if my little girl carries this awful gene. In fact, when I got the news back in November of last year that my genetic testing had come back and that I was positive for the BRCA2 gene, the first thing that came to my mind was my daughter, Brooke. Does this mean I have passed this on to her??? Does this mean that she is BRCA2??????

Lately, because of my recent surgery and everbody's fixation on my chest area, including myself, doctors, friends, family, strangers even!, Brooke has taken notice to all of this....She is at the raw, innocent age of 4, and is already asking me when she is going to get boobs..(Which these days, isn't too far away, considering 5th graders are starting their periods now, and some have bigger boobs than I ever did, or now do.)..The other night, she asked me if they will take her boobs off when she gets big, as if that is just what happens to all women when they get older, because she sees me, her mommy, going through this, and accepts that it is normal...

I have tried my hardest to keep my pain and other issues out of my kids' sights. I don't want them to worry about me, or to worry about why I have to have my boobs, or body parts, removed. I just want them to be kids....But when Brooke or Andrew sees me undress and they see my strange, nipple-less breasts, or accidentally lean across me and fall on my rock hard chest, and I grimace in pain, they notice....They realize that their mommy is not how she used to be...And for Brooke, being a little girl, she takes notice to every single detail, every single mole, hair, and ecspecially, the new nipple-less boobs on her mommy. She is very aware to the fact that I no longer have nipples and she doesn't quite understand this. She keeps asking me if they will grow back, or if hers will oneday disappear, like mine did...(Because to her, my nipples just vanished...Kids don't understand the concept of "surgery". You can try to explain it to them, but if they have never had surgery, then they don't really understand...And it's scary for them...)

She also is very conscious about how her clothes look....On her chest.....And I'm sure this is my fault...She sees and hears me look at myself in the mirror constantly, staring at my foobs, trying to somehow make them look normal. Struggling to feel normal again in my new body..I no longer look at my face or hair in the mirror...It's all about the foobs...Well...The other day, Brooke was wearing a button down shirt, and she was so worried that the buttons were going to come unbuttoned...She kept saying, " I don't want everyone see my nipples."  Hmmm.....Really made me think....I need to be a little bit more careful about what I say about myself and how I talk about myself, and how I look at myself when she is around.....I look at myself in the mirror, and all I see are boobs, but when I see Brooke, I have to remember that she is a mirror of me...I need to remember that.

So all of this brings me to this issue.....Some people have asked me, "Are you going to get Brooke tested for the gene?" Well, NO......First of all, I don't want to test her now, because there is nothing I can do if she tests positive...There's nothing I can do presently...She's 4! It's not like she can go have a double mastectomy, go on preventive chemo, or have frequent mammograms...Once again, she's four years old!  Second of all, knowing that your child tests positive for an awful gene and having to sit around on that information for a while until your child is able to make her own decisions as to what to do.....Uh...no thanks........I don't think I could handle that.

I always say that if my mom could have been able to do this genetic testing and could have had her breasts removed BEFORE ever getting cancer, that she would still be alive today...But the technology wasn't there during those years.......Look at where we're at today....Genetic testing told me that I have a genetic mutation, the same type as my mom had, that would allow tumors to grow, particularly in my breasts, and I was able to have my breasts removed BEFORE that ever happened. Now, I no longer have breasts, so tumors can't grow there= fuck breast cancer. So just think where technology will be in 20 more years....Maybe a vaccine for BRCA+ people......Maybe a cure? Maybe breast cancer will no longer be a threat to any woman, or man, in the world anymore...Maybe....

That's what I am hoping for. I don't want my child to have to go through anything like this...It's fine that I have to do it....I am finally at peace with that...But I don't want to have to see my little girl have to..So when you see the word "HOPE" associated with breast cancer awareness and stuff, a lot of times, that hope is for our future generations....For our daughters. The hope that a miracle will happen...

The Woman in the Mirror

As I look at myself in the mirror lately, all I see are HUGE, nipple-less, rock hard foobs, with scars across them.....I have had 4 fills to my tissue expanders, for a total of 410cc's into each one, and to tell the truth, I think my body will only be able to take one more fill. I have been in so much pain since my last fill, which was 4 days ago. Right before my last fill, the pain was starting to subside....The percocet was too strong for the pain that I had every day, and I actually only took them like once or twice a week....So when I saw the doctor this past Monday (8/23/10), I asked her for something a little bit weaker, but for something that would still relieve the pain. (Ibuprofen didn't do crap for me..) So my doc prescribed me Darvocet....WELLLLL, little did I know that this fill was going to be extremely painful, and I should have just stuck with the strong shit, instead of asking for something a little weaker......Oh well..At least I'm stocking up on my pharmacy at home...(JK....I'm a nurse...I'm not a druggie....I don't supply others with MY drugs...Seriously!) It's just frustrating to be in pain, not be in pain, then be in pain again....The cycle is exhausting....Mentally draining, as well...

And that brings me to another point. I have read from other womens' blogs who have gone through this, and how they have struggled with depression during their recovery and stuff...Well, now I am writing about my own experience with this dreaded shit. The depression demon has reared its ugly head into my life the past couple of weeks, and it really sucks....I don't know what else to say except for that...It just really sucks ass.

First, you get the news of being BRCA+, go through the depression, denial, and eventually, acceptance of all of that shit.....Then you go through the process of planning your new life.....For me, it was surgery....Removal of my breasts.....So you go through the anxiety of waiting for that....Then it happens.....Then your life changes...Acutely, and permanently...It changes short term, because you are recovering from major surgery, aren't able to lift anything, do anything for a while, are in pain, are hurting, can't do things for your kids/family, can't work........It changes permanently because you are changing your natural body- you no longer have your breasts....And for me, even though I got immediate reconstruction, and have foobs (fake boobs, mounds, rocks, tissue expanders), it's not the same.....My new "breasts" (still in the process....I still have another surgery for the more permanent implants in about 3 months) really have no biological function....They have no feeling...No nipples.....They will never be able to produce milk, which I don't plan on ever doing again, but still......Your life also changes permanently, by having your breasts removed, because you no longer have to worry about cancer..I no longer have to worry about that 95% chance of getting breast cancer before I'm 50 years old...I no longer have to worry about the cysts...The lumps.....But during recovery, after the pain kind of goes away, and after the initial shock of having your body parts removed goes away, depression comes....Slowly but surely.....You're able to do things, but not able to do ALL the things that you were able to do prior to surgery...Such as: Running, lifting, work as much as you would like, etc.....And that right there can cause DEPRESSION.......(WAaaaaa!!...Somebody call the WAAAmbulance, right?? )

Depression is like one of those abusive, toxic "friends" that everyone has, or has had at one point in their lives...You know, the type of friend that makes you feel stupid, makes you second guess yourself about everything-about the way you act, the way you look, the way you talk, walk, dress, eat, EVERYTHING...The type of friend that mentally and emotionally breaks you down, makes you feel like shit, but there's nothing you can do to make that friend leave you the hell alone....Yea...That's depression......And I am no stranger to this so called "friend", or more appropriately called, ENEMY...I am no stranger to the most intense type of depression...After my mom passed away, depression ruled my life, literally  drove me to almost kill myself on numerous accounts, and I was hospitalized, medicated, treated, evaluated, etc....So depression is something that I know all too well....So I know when it's present in my life....And most of the time, I know how to deal with it......(Yes, I take antidepressants too on a daily basis.....Effexor XR 75mg)....Most of the time I can help others deal with it too.....But this time....Damn....This "friend" really likes me...

So lately, when I look in the mirror, I don't see Angela..All I see are those two fake, reconstructed breasts looking back at me....A depressed Angela is not who I am, and I know that with time, this will pass...But for now, I feel empty, just as my breasts are now empty.. ..:My emotions feel about as heavy as these tissue expanders are, that lie inside my chest muscles....And I'm as fragile as my skin is on my chest, from stretching to the max...But deep down, I still know that I'm going to get through all of this, because look what I've gotten through so far.....We don't gain strength without struggles....You don't cherish life until you've been faced with hearing a potential "death sentence", as a lot of us BRCA-ers call it....And I was able to do something about it...And I did...So for that, I'm thankful...Not depressed......So I'm trying to dig myself out of this dark hole....Trying as hard as I can, but when the pain sets in, I can't lift myself out of that hole with my own two arms...I don't have the strength yet....