Post surgery

Yesterday marked 1 month since my reconstruction surgery. It's going okay so far. The immediate recovery was a million times easier than my mastectomy surgery which everyone told me. I went for a post-op check up a week after surgery and it was good. I broke out all over my torso immediately after surgery  and I think it's from the orange stuff they put on you before surgery. It went away by the following week.

Last Wednesday I called my doctor because it looked red around my steri-strips in my incision on my cancer side and I was worried it was getting infected. They told me to come right in and the PA looked at it. She took off the steri-strips and looked a little concerned. It wasn't infected but radiation causes all sorts of wound problems. So I got another antibiotic and told to use Neosporin on that incision. The other side looks fine. 

I went back yesterday. I was supposed to go this Friday but my doctors office called yesterday to say they wanted to see me sooner. I guess the PA and my doctor were talking about me Tuesday and my doctor was concerned enough that he wanted to see me sooner. Luckily the PA was in the room with the doctor and she thought it looked much better. My doctor changed me to a prescription ointment and extended my 2nd antibiotic. He thinks that incision will be healed in about another week. I'm just hoping none of this pushes back when my restrictions get lifted on the 14th. 

I luckily haven't been in much pain. Last week I was in a little pain which another reason why I called the doctor but otherwise it hasn't been bad. I'm just looking forward to feeling normal and being able to do things like raise my arms over my head and sleep on my side. 

It's been a pretty emotional month. In my last blog I said that its brought back a lot of thoughts of cancer. Obviously I wouldn't be having this surgery if I never had cancer. But more than that sometimes I feel like cancer keeps butting in my life. It's like cancer sees I'm doing well so it throws something new at me. I wish I could get a restraining order. Last week I was really frustrated because one of the reasons I out this surgery off for so long is because I didn't want to have to deal with all of this again. So it felt like a punishment or something that I was having complications. It's bad enough that I'm permanently disfigured and have permanent discoloration from radiation but then to have my wound not heal too? I shouldn't have been surprised. After all I am usually in the small percentage that things happen to. But I'm feeling better after seeing my doctor yesterday and my incision finally look like it's starting to heal.  

On a different note, Tuesday was my head shaving cancerversary.

Bottom left and top left: 12/1/12 before and after, top middle: 12/1/13, top right: 12/1/14, bottom right: 12/1/15

I was reading my old blogs about shaving my head on Tuesday and it just seems so strange that those blogs are about me. I actually liked having a bald head once I finally had it shaved. Although I hated wearing a wig. Most days after work I'd take it off in the car on the way home from work- it makes your head so hot! And when your hair is falling out it is SO itchy! But hopefully I never have to experience that again! Growing your hair out is such a pain! I love looking back at old pictures from 2 years ago to see how crazy my hair looked while it was growing back out.