Today I had my final breast expander fill visit with Dr. FixIt. Prior to today’s visit, Righty was pretty close to my intended final size. We needed to expand one last time since it’s better to have the “pocket” larger than they need it; they can always take it in, but they cannot make it bigger – i.e., they can’t make more skin. A bigger problem is that it will shrink during radiation. Dr. FixIt explained radiation’s effect like this: imagine the skin on the breast is like a leather glove. Get the glove wet, and let it dry out on your driveway, in the sun. It’ll shrink. This is like what radiation will do.  Aaahhh, what a lovely image for me. But that’s why I call him Dr. FixIt – he gets to clean up everyone else’s messes!

We also talked about the timing of my reconstructive surgery. I told him that Dr. Cancer had said I could schedule it for six months after radiation is done, but that seems like a long time. He said, no, it’s not a long time – Dr. Cancer said that because that’s what he tells them to say. He really needs the skin fully recovered from the “Leather Glove” stage.

By my math that means my first surgery can be as early as mid-August 2017. Which sucks, because the breast expander is really uncomfortable and I can’t believe it’ll be in there for over a year, ugh. The second (hopefully final) surgery would be a few months later. I have in my head that I’ll be done with all this shit by Christmas 2017, so it sounds like I’ll be looking forward to Christmas for two years in a row!