I’ve never been to hell… but I might equate the last five months to it..

 

                                         

   April 16^th, Marks the first inflation… So let me walk you through it… I have an appointment scheduled within the hospital at Out Patients. I go into a small room, change into a gown and wait…. My plastic surgeon comes in, uses a small magnet to find the inflation port on my chest which is located under the skin and is small disc which is a part of the spacer. He marks the area with a sharpie, uses alcohol to sterilize the area and takes a 14g needle which is full of 50cc of Normal Saline. He puts the needle directly on the mark and inserts in into my chest. After he’s felt the bottom of the spacer with the needle he withdraws a bit and injects the saline.    

    I would equate this experience as not excruciating, but nowhere near comfortable and even though I have no feeling in my skin, my chest hurts after…For my first inflation.. I literally walked in with no chest and left with adolescence teen bobbies.. It was a very strange experience. The first three inflations, which were every week until the first week of June where 100cc in each side of my chest, with each inflation the skin stretched… not evenly and the spacers are industrial and wrinkled…the muscles stretch and rip each week as they’ve been removed from my chest wall and placed over top of my spacers to hold them up. As a result of not having any tissue to hold up my spacers and using muscle, one of my spacers slipped… so I have one breast that in approx. 2inches lower and way bigger… I look like something out of a horror film.

Now we wait for the skin and muscle memory to fade, until I can get these awful things out and have surgery to put in the implants..

Facts~

The Spacers are hard and have no feeling

Ice helps with the pain of inflation but you can’t tell when your burning your skin, do not use an ice pack but one ice cube at a time as it will melt before it burns you.

Being over inflated makes me feel semi like I am out of an adult movie

People will say and do things you can only shake your head at.

Spacers won’t be the same size.. Getting dressed is a HUGE struggle… find a breast pad that is foam, the silicone ones are meant to mold into the breast tissue… You have Tupperware containers, there is no molding into. Find a foam pad and use your arts and craft skills to custom it to match the lager side, and use a liner from a bathing suit to cover the other nipple…

No feeling and Rocks that don’t move = no issues jumping up and down and easy entry into the cold lake.

Forget golf…. ( Thank god I didn’t play pre surgery) there is no swinging going on once over inflated…these puppies really don’t move.

Moisturize moisturize moisturize!  And massage your skin and muscles, even though it may be uncomfortable it will make the next inflation bearable…