Sept 4, 2012 - Day # 27 - Denial, it's what's for dinner.

Day 27: I didn't make the track team. I gave it a good old sally try, but those exercises are not fun and quite the strain on little pectoral muscle that just 13 days or so ago was filleted and glued and stretched. It loudly screameth outeth in retaliation. Hanging my head low. I desperately wanted to please the coach (aka. surgeon). But today is a new day, right? I have practice in a about an hour, but I decided to post instead and put you, my faithful supporters, first. Laughing, ok well I just wanted to delay the scar splitting implant popping exercises a bit more. What's another hour?

I did however have a few successes yesterday. Blue ribbons all around! Almost.

1) I, the very woman who has had nothing but pajamas on for 27 days (with the exception of one outing to church where I feared God smirk on the PJs), put on Jeans and a blouse for an outing with Ron! Wooo hallelujah hooo! And they actually fit! This was a bit of a fear of mine and maybe a small source of delay in switching from the PJs. You know denial is a handy tool of mine, but I'm working on lessening my denial arsenal. More on that soon.

2) I washed AND dried my hair! It was an awful rat's nest in the end, but hey, it was dry.

3) I put on makeup.

4) I once again applied deodorant.

5) I fixed myself a bowl of cereal.

6) Went on a date. It was short with just dinner out, but it was a date all the same. We wanted to go to a movie, but I didn't have it in me. I'm working up to that. So we came back home to watch a dvd here. By the way, at this current place in my journey, I'm still too emotional to make it through "The Last King of Scotland". Wowsers, I was a wreck! I hurt from head to toe by the end of that.

Now this whole shower, dry, makeup, clothes process only took me about 2.5, maybe 3, hours but still it got done and there were no tears! I somehow have to find a way to knock that process down to about 45 mins in the next 10 days in prep for going back to work, but you have to start somewhere.

Let me go back to the movie. I've learned something new about myself. And I quote Ron. I am now a "wuss". And let me tell you that is a drastic change from the pre-mastectomy me. I can't explain it, it just is. Where I used to be rock solid in tolerating blood and goo, I now cringe at the sight of a kid getting a vaccination. I see a needle and I freak out (already seeing red lights for my clinic  job I am returning to soon)! I see a leg being amputated on the screen, I hurt to my core with physical pain. Last night, during the movie, I kept grabbing my sternum in pain.

What I am learning is that my subconscious anguish is being manifested in physical reactions. I saw this start back in July when I was approaching my surgery date. I would wake up in the middle of the night with horrible shooting pains running down each leg, then 10 second later the elbow, 10 seconds later my sternum. They hurt so bad I would scream out grabbing this and that.  Always migrating and never a physical explanation. This is the first time in my life I've fully understood how much the mind plays a roll in health.  I have several examples in July of sitting working on a project or more embarrassingly sitting in a staff meeting and with absolutely zero notice bursting out into uncontrollable sobbing. Thankfully, this has resolved. But I started realizing how much this decision to undergo mastectomy had wrecked my subconscious thinking. This was brand spanking new to me. I'm the one you want in an emergency. I'm the one you want making tough medical decisions with you. I'm the rational one! Well, boy did that change for about two months. I see that rational side coming back, and I have hopes I will return to that baseline steady has served me so well. It's right around the corner! Anyway, its just amazing how much chaos can impact your everything. I think everyone was amazed at how much this impacted me. We didn't expect that. But I was a slobbering and blubbering saint bernard at the sight of my mastectomy. Rock solid Sally was no where in sight. Believe me, I searched.

And that brings me to needing to admit something else. A failure of yesterday. You should see me rolling my eyes and scrunching up my face as I type this. It's pitiful really. I want to be a better person than this. I see the absurdity of my delay. It's been 27 days for goodness sake. You know how I mentioned in yesterday's update that i was going to embrace the mirror? (Maybe all of you forgot that and I am off the hook, but doubtful.) I gave myself 12 hours to go stand in front of the mirror and actually look at the impostors and their scars. (Reminder, I've yet to see these implants in all their glory staring back at me in a mirror, I've only had the vantage point of looking down. I have no idea what they really look like). Well, I didn't reach my goal. I tried, twice in fact, and just couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't know what I am so afraid of. This is not me. I'm never afraid to face life.  But these impostor boobs have me all freaked out! If I don't look, they aren't so bad. If I look, they are my reality. I think deep down I am waiting for them to get into their final state before I commit to knowing them personally. I'd rather them just be an architectural work in progress that I ignore until the finalized building passes building code inspection. Lead Plastic Surgeon told me it will take several weeks before everything settles out, swelling gone, lumpiness less lumpy, divots filled in, pain resolved, remotely looking normal.  I'm a sap. I'm the queen of mastectomy denial.

THIS is my weakness in this whole journey. I just don't want these impostors to be mine! I want back my, flawed as they were, former God-given tenants. I want back their asymmetry. I want back their 37 year old sag (well, maybe). They were mine, and I had plans to grow old with them. They knew me and I knew them. We had a great thing going! Breaking up is hard to do. I mourn my pitiful, not at all worthy, flawed boobs. There was no drama there. God had a different fate for that relationship, I trust that fate, but I still mourn the old. I mourn last May when I was none the wiser before picking up a medical abstract. I mourn the days of not thinking about a boob for even one second of my day.

My thoughts and reactions seem dramatic. They are. I imagine some women sore through this prophylactic journey with flying colors. Not even a second thought. In surgery today, embracing new boobs tomorrow! I hope that for them with everything in me. I wish that for me. Boy, do I. But here I sit...adjusting. Better today than yesterday though. So there is a trend!

Does it count that I do like having not so large "hands"? Oh yeah, then there is a 5% breast cancer risk.  Priceless.