Reality

The Facebook Posts – Mel’s Cancer Diaries.

My journey is much harder on my psyche than I expected. The process of filling the tissue expanders was much more painful than my doc explained. If you have gone through breast cancer you may have noticed that the medical community doesn’t focus much on the healing process. Maybe it is just my experience, but I feel that they don’t warn you of what something is going to feel like. Not just physically, but emotionally too.

Take the experience of tissue expanders as an example. Yes, I had an appointment in a medical office that explained the mechanics of what would happen, but they skipped over a lot of parts that make up an experience as a whole. The first time I had a “fill” I came home and went to bed. I couldn’t get a muscle relaxer and pain killer in me soon enough! Strangely, the pain was a pulling feeling in my shoulders down into my back. I didn’t go into work that day as my body was too achy. I had no idea I’d feel this way. No one told me.

When you get a fill a magnet is placed on your breast to find the port with which to stick a thick needle through your skin and pectoral muscle. Saline pushes its way into the bag located under your muscle expanding it out, stretching the skin with it. You leave the doctors office with bigger breasts, however because it is saline inside of a special sack, the area becomes very hard. Basically, your boobs feel like rocks. This feeling is very uncomfortable and frankly, a bit disheartening.

My physical self healed much faster than my emotional self. In fact, I’m still struggling with my emotions. I still struggle with how different I look and feel. I keep looking toward the day my scars have faded and my breasts feel like my breasts again. I wonder if that will ever really happen?