{who knew}

I'm trying to give my blog some new life.  I am trying to commit time to it, make it something that people want to continue reading, make it something I am dying to sit down work on.  I'm cleaning it up, adding to it and trying not to be so damn blog illiterate.  I know there must be a lot of fun things I can add to it and make it a place people want to be.  While doing all this to make my blog "the place to be" I am going back through and cleaning up posts that I typed up, but never posted, deleting partially worked on masterpieces, etc.  While doing this I came across a complete blog entry that I never posted and I wondered why?  I like it.  Maybe I was to busy to remember to post it. Maybe I didn't like it at the time.  I don't know, but I am going to post it now.  This goes back to almost a year ago, but I am still posting it because when I read it I was taken right back to that day and I remember all of this vividly.  So read and enjoy and got back to "me" almost a year ago.

May 2011
This is kind of a random post, but it is one of those random posts that prompted me to start this blog. Real experiences. Personal experiences with breast cancer. Not the medical, factual, clinical stuff you can get from your doctor. The personal experience stuff that your girlfriend would tell you. Kind of a "Girlfriend's Guide to Breast Cancer: Stuff Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You". So this is one of those posts. Random, but stuff that I have experienced and that rattles through my head. As always, remember, it's breast cancer, boobs are usually front and center. ;-)

Many people equated my reconstruction with "Woo-Hoo! New boobs!" Ummm, not quite. Well, at least for me, unfortunately, it didn't quite work that way. Very early on in my meetings with my plastic surgeon she told me my experience isn't like somebody coming in to have a breast augmentation. They are choosing to have implants. They want their new body. I didn't have a choice.  Well, I had a choice when I chose reconstruction, but losing my breasts was not a choice. She told me, "You aren't going to love them. You don't want the change in your body. But, I am going to make them as beautiful as possible." And, you know what? I didn't love them. I REALLY, REALLY disliked them for a long time. I would look at them and they looked so unnatural on my body. I have never had much in the "boob" department and for a long time they didn't look anything close to "natural". They were very huge and swollen all the way up to my collar bones. I felt like I had to stand on my tip toes to see out over my boobs. Pre-mastectomy, I had some great cheater bras that provided great false advertising, but at the end of the day when I would get undressed I was greeted with MY body. My body that I have always had. My body that I knew. Now, a new body was looking back at me, a strange, misshapen body.

So, as you can imagine during this process I went through a crazy roller coaster of emotions getting used to my body. At one point I would break down crying every time I saw them in the mirror or had to tend to my incisions. I went through a time of just avoiding looking at them in the mirror. But, then I would have sweet, wonderful moments of "You know what? It is what it is. I will get used to them. They will be okay." These provided a wonderful release of heaviness on my heart. Then I would stumble backwards and loose some ground, but slowly I made it to where I am right now. Where I am now is a lovely, lovely place to be. Dare I say the other side? A point where I can't stumble back far enough to lose ground. I think so. I think I can actually say I am kind of enjoying my new body and digging my new curves. Add Monday's surgery to the mix and I have new tummy curves to add to that. Even all swollen from surgery, bruised all over and not really being able to see anything "pretty" I can totally see that things are coming together so well. I just told a friend I think I am just so happy to be at a point where I just get to heal and truly move forward. No future surgeries or procedures looming in my future. Just heal and get strong.

So with my new body comes some fun stuff, especially moving into summer. New bra wardrobe, new swimsuits, new summer tops. But, not all is what I thought it would be. This is where I have found myself thinking, "Who knew?" Some of the things I thought were going to be very fun aren't as much fun as I thought. Some things are more fun than I expected and some things I just didn't expect. Who knew?

Unless somebody warned you before you went shopping for new bras who knew push up bras are no longer an option with implants? At least implants with a reconstruction. I have no idea how that works with an augmentation. Those babies don't push up. They stay in one place and that push up bra pushes down and just doesn't work. Who knew it is hard to find a selection of bras without push up in them? Who knew I would have to find bras that are shaped exactly like my boobs because their shape doesn't alter at all to fill in bra cups because I no longer have breast tissue, only pec muscle and implants? Who knew that I can now wear fun lace-only, "non-functional" bras because I don't need any support at all in a bra. My girls aren't going anywhere. Who knew I would be totally horrified and in awe at the same time when I tried on a bikini? That is going to take some getting used to and I need to find some bikini tops with a little more coverage if that is possible. Not to comfortable being THAT out there. Who knew I would toss some of my summer tops in the donate pile because I just feel totally obscene in them? Who knew I would discover that I lived in a strapless bra all summer in my summer tops and now realize I am having a hard time finding a strapless bra that works with my new body to wear and enjoy my summer tops? Who knew I would find that I am more comfortable in slim fitting shirts because tops that hang loose off my new body make me feel dumpy and frumpy? Who knew that I would find so many ways that my new body is affecting different clothing choices and that some I am liking and some I am not. Who knew? I am finding that this whole process is a long list of "Who knew?"

When looking for some info on bras and reconstruction I Googled "reconstruction implants bras". I mostly found a lot of breast cancer forums with women asking questions and giving advise based on their personal experiences. While reading through many of these forums I found that I am very thankful for my plastic surgeon, her skill and my experience with my reconstruction. My doctor doesn't like to use tissue expanders to make room for implants. She feels they are old school and in her experience she has found she can bypass the awful experience of the expanders (she just doesn't like them) and go straight to the implants. So many experiences that women posted were reconstruction results they weren't really pleased with going from a tissue expander to an implant. I have no idea if this is how it is in general, but it makes me so thankful that my doctor does reconstructions the way she does, how my reconstruction results turned out and the direction I am going. I'm happy to be where I am now and far more aware of the possibilities of the "who knew" moments so as not to be totally shocked or surprised by anything. Thank goodness for this place that I have come to be right in this moment.

"I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it." Maya Angelou