After my exchange surgery last July, I thought that my life would develop some form of normality (not sure what I was expecting really) but some how my body just refused to accept the implants and did everything it could to extract them (and make my life miserable at the same time). So I had grade IV capsular contracture and and needed the implants changed…
fast forward to now March 2011…… surgery didn’t go to plan (what a surprise) my surgeon had to scrape my ribs to get the capsular out and I bled more than usual too…. recovery, spent 7 hours in recovery throwing up. Actually, when I woke up I thought I must have still been on the operating table, my pain was off the chart. Two days later and the pain had somewhat subsided (went from 10/10 to 7/10) and was sent home. I peeked at my new boobs, and daydreamed about how great they were going to feel, how exciting it would be to be pain free and how my life could now go back to normal….
8days post op and I was back in hospital, this time with DVT, the doctor needed to check my wounds after I had been given the blood thiner to make sure I hadn’t bled out my incisions… we both looked together…. and that’s when I noticed my body had done the same thing it had done a year before…. pushed the implant to the side and created lumps through it. The other implant sat perkily upon my chest as if sitting up in pride, saying well I didn’t fail!
So now I sit here and wonder how far do I go? how much does my body hate me? will I ever be pain free? and yes I do ask myself, what the hell have I done? and I feel a tinge of regret, yeah I do.. I hate to say it but it’s how I feel right at this moment.
My wonderfully supportive husband said to me last night, there is only so far you can push your body before the odds go against us… and he’s right… but I don’t know that I can live with the alternative of pain and boobs that make me hate myself.
Maybe that’s the solution, maybe I need to learn to love myself…
the brca mutant and me 