I must say, this has been the best chemo cycle so far! I feel pretty darn good! I have been going to a lymphedema therapist, and she has been doing massages on my arm- mostly just to show me what to do to myself if I do have any swelling in my arm. She said that people typically have between 8 and 24 lymph nodes going to their arm. I had between 13-16 of them removed! Yikes! So far I have notices some heaviness, but no noticable swelling, but it is really hard to know if any of it is lymphedema or not because it could just be recovery from surgery, or carpal tunnel because I have CT bad in my right arm. The lymphedema therapist fitted me with a sleeve to wear any time I fly and also if I am doing something really strenuous and repetative like painting walls. Hopefully I can stay on top of it and it will never really develop into a problem.
I went to see my plastic surgeon this week and as soon as I saw him, I promised I wasn't going to throw any tantrums or freak out on him this time. LOL! He assured me that it was fine, and doesn't bother him if I vent a little. I guess breast cancer patients probably freak out in his office somewhat regularly. So, after telling him I was going to be calm, I discussed our plans for the future. He is going to over fill my right side so that it will be larger than what it will be in the end. This is so that when I have radiation and it shrinks my skin, I will still (hopefully) have enough salvagable skin left over that we will be able to put the final implant in without doing a skin graft. Then, I asked him about the timeline-
I said: so it will be 6 months after my final radiation treatment, correct?
dr: Well......6 months at the very minimum
me: SHUT UP!!! 6 months. You said 6 months. NOT longer!
He is obviously married because what he said next was the right answer- 'I mean yes, exactly 6 months to the day' As in whatever you want the answer to be, I will say.
LOL!
me: thank you
sooo obviously I can not go into his office without yelling or freaking out. It is pretty funny that I yelled shut up to him though!
He then filled me- another 50cc's. After doing that, he said- that looks pretty good, ya wanna do another 50 today?
me: uhhhh NO
then after considering it for a minute, I told him he could put another 20 in if he REALLY wanted to. He laughed and said no, he would just wait a few weeks.
Thank goodness because I really don't think it would be very comfortable to get more than 50 at a time!
The good news is that if I lay down and look at my boob it is really starting to get big! It isn't nearly as noticable when I am upright. It is more sore this time though- which makes me even more glad I didn't get more of a fill than normal.
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