Wednesday happenings

Monday my mom and I went to the plastic surgeon and I got my last drain out!!!! Its been so wonderful although I do kind of miss it. JUST KIDDING! But it was weird the first day to adjust to not having it. I kept thinking it was time to empty it or I had to move it to sleep and it was no longer there! I got used to it pretty quick though! They also did the first expansion. It is SO weird that they use a magnet to find the little port in the expander and then use this giant syringe to fill em up. I'm not sure exactly how much they put in because I wasn't paying attention but they only filled it until I was uncomfortable which I appreciated. My plastic surgeon also told me that they won’t do the reconstruction surgery until 6 months after I finish radiation which sucked to hear. That’s about a year from now. We never discussed timeline after radiation (as far as I remember) because no one was expecting that it would be part of my treatment plan.

I also drove for the first time on Monday. And it was the last time too. It’s still pretty uncomfortable to be in the car in general and then to turn and change lanes is just adding insult to injury (literally). I think I'm going to do a little more and more every day to get used to it. It’s ironic because I LOVE to drive so much. I drive us everywhere. But it’s been nice to be the passenger!

Today George and I went to Chemo Class. I think it’s a great class that they have. It gives general ideas about what could happen when you have chemo. Some things like hair loss and fatigue happen to everyone (in my class anyway) but there are other symptoms that you may or may not get and the doctors have meds to ease those symptoms. The nurse also gave us a list of things to avoid during chemo like mani's and pedi's and hot tubs. When she told us that, I said "man chemo is NO fun!" which got a laugh out of the class. It’s so interesting to me that we are sitting in this class, we all have various stages of this terrible disease and yet we can laugh and make fun of it. The next 5ish months aren't going to my favorite but they can still be fun. There is a lot to celebrate (including my birthday 1 month from today) and I plan to celebrate as much as possible.

I’ve been having like phantom feelings lately which is really weird. It feels like your foots asleep a little bit and the feeling is starting to come back. It’s very annoying and I can’t wait for it to go away. I also have no feeling in my right arm pit where they took the lymph nodes out and on my right side next to my arm pit where they took the rest of the lymph nodes (no one told me I have a 2-3 inch incision there…I was VERY surprised to see it 2 weeks ago!). It’s weird to put your hand on your arm and not be able to feel that it’s there. I know not all the sensation is going to come back but I hope most of it does.