It's been four days after my second surgery and I'm feeling much better than I initially thought I would be. When I woke up after Thursday's surgery I was in a lot of pain. That entire night I would wake Jon up every hour begging for more meds. My mind was racing with fears of starting back at square 1, after an entire 3 weeks of doing nothing but resting! Thankfully I am happy to report that I am in a much better place now. I feel like I've picked back up to where I was before the second surgery. I can floss and brush my own teeth! With some minor pain, I can sit myself up from a laying position. I can wash my own face and sit on the floor and pet my baby dogs. I'm still not able to raise my arms, and after around 5 minutes of standing I'm ready to collapse onto my bed, but I will tell you that all of this is an incredible amount of progress for me, and I'm slowly but surely getting more self sufficient.
My Plastic Surgeon has assured me that the surgery went great. She took time out of her Sunday to meet with me yesterday and see how my wounds were healing. My skin seems to be adapting nicely to it's new home from below my breasts to becoming my actual breasts. Both nipples are pretty much gone, but that just means I get to go nipple shopping in addition to boob shopping! I go back on Wednesday to potentially get some stitches removed, and for another check-up to see how I'm progressing. My Plastic Surgeon thinks I'll be ready for physical therapy by the end of the week to help relax my muscles and begin the process of raising my arms. She also thinks by the end of the week I can start little "mini field trips". Hallelujah! The first appointment I will be making is a haircut. It's time to start thinking about shorter hair to ease the loss when Chemotherapy begins.
Speaking of Chemo and the next phase of treatment... my Oncotype DX report came back and it confirmed everything the pathology report was telling us. Apparently there's a scoring system of 1-50. 1-18 is slow growing cancer, 19-30 is intermediate, 31-50 is aggressive. I'm 31, right on the bottom of aggressive, which was to be expected based on my Ki-67 scores, the fact that I'm young, that my cancer was invasive, and that it hit my blood stream. This means I'm definitely in for Chemotherapy. I have an appointment with my Oncologist tomorrow to go into more detail on what to expect, but I do know I will likely undergo 4 treatments every 3 weeks, and it's done via IV for around 2.5 hours. My Plastic Surgeon and Oncologist will determine when I'm ready to start, but it sounds like 3 weeks from my last surgery is the current plan as long as I'm healing as expected.
So that's the latest. I believe I'm back on the path, just had to deal with a minor detour. And hey, the detour did bestow me with a mini "reverse tummy tuck" as my Plastic Surgeon explained to me, a little silver lining that I can be thankful for!
Last, I want to thank everyone for uploading their photos wearing the IWBF t-shirts to Instagram. I've been obsessively refreshing for new photos, and finding a new one is honestly one of the best highlights of my day. I LOVE the fact that people are doing it, and everyone looks so beautiful, proud and happy. Thank you so very much for supporting me. It means the world to me. Imagine me looking at the photo slideshow all day, smiling at how loved and blessed I feel for having such a strong support of friends and family by my side.
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