I hate tissue expanders. The end.
Well, OK. I know they serve a purpose, but still they are horrendous.
The best way I can describe the tissue expanders is to compare it to taking a heavy paper bag and crushing it into a ball and shoving it under your chest wall. I can literally feel the hard edges to the tissue expander in there. There are sharp edges and folds and it feels very uncomfortable. Sometimes I can feel it shifting or moving just a little and it is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Not painful (the expanding is what is painful) but just so so SO uncomfortable. I can now understand why people say they can't wait to get the exchange surgery. I am now in that boat too.
I have to wait a full 4 weeks after my last fill to have the exchange surgery (swapping tissue expanders for implants). All of the bruising has to be gone before surgery and I have a lot of bruising still from the surgery and also fresh from my fall. The last requirement is that the exchange surgery can't take place sooner than 8 full weeks out from the mastectomy surgery. So, at the very earliest, I could have the surgery August 24th, assuming my bruising is gone.
The good news is that I won't need drains for this next surgery! Hooray!
We have decided it would be nice to have the surgery before school starts as somehow that seems easier with the boys. So, our goal is to have it by the end of August.
We are thinking I will need one more fill next week but it will be a much smaller fill, so hopefully not nearly as painful as this last one.
Well, OK. I know they serve a purpose, but still they are horrendous.
The best way I can describe the tissue expanders is to compare it to taking a heavy paper bag and crushing it into a ball and shoving it under your chest wall. I can literally feel the hard edges to the tissue expander in there. There are sharp edges and folds and it feels very uncomfortable. Sometimes I can feel it shifting or moving just a little and it is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Not painful (the expanding is what is painful) but just so so SO uncomfortable. I can now understand why people say they can't wait to get the exchange surgery. I am now in that boat too.
I have to wait a full 4 weeks after my last fill to have the exchange surgery (swapping tissue expanders for implants). All of the bruising has to be gone before surgery and I have a lot of bruising still from the surgery and also fresh from my fall. The last requirement is that the exchange surgery can't take place sooner than 8 full weeks out from the mastectomy surgery. So, at the very earliest, I could have the surgery August 24th, assuming my bruising is gone.
The good news is that I won't need drains for this next surgery! Hooray!
We have decided it would be nice to have the surgery before school starts as somehow that seems easier with the boys. So, our goal is to have it by the end of August.
We are thinking I will need one more fill next week but it will be a much smaller fill, so hopefully not nearly as painful as this last one.
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