What do you do when...

What do you do when your prosthetic boob falls out of your bra and onto your feet in the grocery store? Why, pick it up and put it back in of course!

What do you do when there is an itch on the INSIDE of your boob somewhere behind the tissue expander? (seriously, how is this even possible?) You shimmy around a lot trying to shift the tissue expander to scratch the itch, which is like a phantom itch and can't really be scratched.

What do you do when you're trying on a prosthetic sports bra thingy in Nordstroms and you get very stuck in it? You do NOT cry for help! You would take a selfie if you could get to your phone. You do struggle and twist your way out, finally exiting the dressing room sweating profusely. "I'm good for today." you say to the sales lady who's been helping you. (by the look on her face this is not a first-time occurrence.

Its been awhile

Hi everyone.

I'm still here. We're still here. Life is good, just very, very busy. I like it that way! I have some projects underway I want to blog about but I'm having a lot of trouble putting my fingers to the keyboard these days.

Tomorrow I will have my 6th surgery in 10 months.

Oophorectomy. Ovary removal. Take those suckers out to decrease the level of estrogen in my body. Decrease the estrogen that fuels my cancer. Its just an outpatient procedure, but thats how they do a lot of these surgeries now. Three of my major surgeries have been outpatient and I was home in my recliner - heavily drugged - by 5:00 pm.

It is kind of weird that Dean and I have a routine worked out for when I have surgeries: who does what to get the house ready for me to be out of commission, what to do with the kids on surgery day, knowing how long it usually takes for me to wake up from anesthesia, get through recovery, etc. Who in the world makes surgery part of their normal? Today I was getting kids of buses, telling drivers who will be here with the kids tomorrow. One of the drivers said, "Well, you always recover so well and jump right back into life."

"Always" because this is normal for us. That's just weird.

And yet there is always that tiny fear. In the last week people have made comments like, "This will be a piece of cake compared to your other surgeries." and "You'll be back to yourself in no-time." Those statements feel like a foreshadowing to me. Kind of ominous. Like this one surgery that is supposed to be so simple may not go so well. But I will do what I always do, making sure Dean knows where all important documents are, just in case.

You'll be happy to know my left foob (fake boob) is looking fantastic as my plastic surgeon continues to expand it. It almost looks like a nipple-less breast now. Oh, oops! I almost forgot that the expander slipped under my arm so it looks like a nipple-less breast under my arm. Aren't you glad I don't post pictures?

My right side, the one with the horrible infection over Christmas, has healed nicely. In the world of breast cancer reconstruction that means I don't have open wounds anymore. What I do have though, is a huge dent and some creases that don't belong on a woman's chest.  All my tops look a bit odd with only one boob. Occasionally I wear a prosthetic but I get so HOT with it. Most of the time I just wear bulky sweatshirts. This is the first time in my journey that I have felt uncomfortable with my appearance. As you can imagine I'm looking forward to April when I can start rebuilding that side again, and next fall (next FALL!) when I can have my final surgery.

So tell me, what have you been up to the last month? What is consuming the majority of your time? I'm making some changes in our life that I can't wait to tell you about. Where do you feel you need to make changes in your life?