10.31.09
Zombie
While I was doing the wet to dry bandages before the debridment, I frequently felt like I was a zombie. No, I didn’t want to eat brains, though I DID want to severely damage the HiQ.
***WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT AHEAD***
No what I mean is that when I would peel off the wet to dry dressing and pull away bits of dead flesh, I couldn’t help but feel like I was, at least in part, an undead zombie. Here I was dropping bits of flesh. And that’s what zombies do…walk around, eat people and drop bits of their body.
Instead of eating people, I felt like this situation was eating me alive. And not just in the literal sense. I began losing myself to this situation. I WAS a bouncy, vibrant, spur-of-the-moment type of person before I became Zombie Maria.
It has only been in the last month or two that I’ve come back to myself. I’m not there yet. I still shamble a bit, though there are no brain cravings. And unfortunately I still haven’t gottten past the point of wishing the HiQ ill. I really couldn’t actually do anything myself. I’m not that kind of person. But you can damn betcha that I wouldn’t be feeling bad if he were to accidentally get his hands crushed.
10.29.09
Misty Watercolor Memories
The human memory is an odd creature. Or at least mine is. I have been trying to remember incidents from the first four or five weeks after the initial lift and implant insertion surgery. I’ll try to zero in on that time and then my mind will slip sideways as though the memories had a silicone shield. Everything just slides right off. Non-stick memories.
I’m guessing this happens because I tried so hard to repress and not think about what was happening WHILE it was happening. I just dealt with one second at a time, did what I had to do and cried about it afterward. I was on what amounts to auto pilot. Either that or I detached and focused on the anatomical details. Although that really started more after the second surgery.
I wonder how much of this is a coping mechanism. Avoidance used to be a major part of my modus operandi. From what I learned when I was (briefly) a psych major, avoidance isn’t considered a healthy way of coping. Though I’m not so sure I WAS avoiding. I was changing the wet to dry dressings twice daily and going to my regularly scheduled doctor appointments with the HiQ.
I have to wonder how clearly people remember incidents of severe trauma. Does our brain initiate a response that allows us to be protected from the harshness of those memories? Is it some sort of conscious mechanism in which we tell ourselves that “this gets filed back here and we’re not going to remember this any more”. Rather like sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling “LALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALALALA!!”
***WARNING – VIVID DESCRIPTION AHEAD***
And then…sometimes I get some vivid memories back. Like one of the times I was pulling off one of the wet to drys and a big chunk of flesh the size of a quarter came away with the necrotic tissue and I felt like Imhotep from “The Mummy”. Or a Zombie.
I actually spent a moment or two trying to put it back in the spot. You know…like when you’re a little kid and you break your favorite toy. You try to put it back together and it won’t go but you just can’t figure out why it won’t go back together.
Yeah, I think I was a little insane for a while.
10.28.09
Packing Up
Even after the debridement the HiQ still had me packing the area with saline soaked wet-to-dry bandages. Every time I asked why this happened his reply was the standard “I don’t know”. When I asked him what was next, his standard reply was “We’ll just have to wait and see.”.
After the debridment I told him that “I don’t know” is no longer an acceptable answer. I let him know that I would accept “I don’t know but I’ll find out” and that I would expect an answer at my next appointment. When he DID finally give me an answer it amounted to “Sometimes these things just happen and we really don’t know why”.
Emotional meltdowns were a regular occurence. Ken still wasn’t allowed in with me. I wasn’t going to expose him to the horror I saw twice a day.
After the debridement there was just raw fatty tissue and flesh. Granular tissue started filling in some of the areas. granulation tissue the newly formed vascular tissue normally produced in healing of wounds of soft tissue, ultimately forming the cicatrix. A Cicatrix is a scar resulting from formation and contraction of fibrous tissue in a flesh wound So I was starting to heal.
Since the HiQ had removed all the necrotic tissue that he could, the next step was the other bad news. There was no way the implants were going to stay. They had to come out. So they scheduled me for the second surgery on November 2nd 2007. And lucky me, I got to pay for the cost to use the surgical center. Yes. You read that right.
In the next post I’ll talk about the shocking reality of law suits for malpractice.
10.15.09
What Is The Sound Velcro Makes?
This is going to be a slightly more graphic than usual post about wet to dry dressings and what necrosis looks like as it develops. So those without strong stomachs are cautioned. I will do my best to inject humor into this as I go. Humor and my support system are really the only way I survived this in the first place.
That, and I rediscovered the analytical part of myself. I mentally separated myself from the situation at hand. I used the phrase “THE breasts” as opposed to “MY breasts” and I never looked at myself in the mirror. So I dissociated to some extent while I was changing the wet to dry bandages.
Initially I didn’t really understand HOW wet the gauze was supposed to be. I was told by the nurse that the gauze should be damp. *I* thought that meant it should be dripping just a little bit. After a couple days I noticed there was little to no progress with the wet to drys. Progress would mean the removal of dead tissue. I was pulling off the occasional fleck here and there but nothing meaningful.
Let me explain a bit more about wet to drys. Once the gauze has been dampened in sterile saline solution, it is laid flat in one or two layers over the area to be debrided. It is molded to the body part so when it dries it is a bit like plaster. A successful pull makes a soft sound akin to velcro being pulled from its fuzzy moorings.
When I went back in for the next check up a couple days later the HiQ complained that there was not enough progress. I explained what I had done and was given the moisture level corrections. It seems that instead of dripping slightly, the gauze should be just slightly damp. Previous to this I had done what is called “packing” where the area is kept moist with wet salined gauze. Thus my confusion, I suppose. We’ll go in to packing later when things have gotten REALLY bad.
Once I had been given better information I was sent home for a couple more days. I was also told that I should only be changing the wet to drys one to two times a day. I HAD been changing them 3-4 times because that was what I had done when I was packing. No one told me to do anything different as far as changing went. Isn’t it amazing how nothing changes when there is no communication?
With the new changes I was getting more dead tissue off. When I pulled off the dried gauze it was definitely pulling away the blackened tissue. The HiQ had me do that for about a week and a half. In that time I still forbade Ken to come in during bandage changes and showering. No one should have to be exposed to that.
I had started crying at least every other day at this point and I was really depressed for obvious reasons. Pulling bits of dead flesh off your own body tends to do that. I was angry because I couldn’t get a straight answer out of the HiQ. The man had all the bedside manner of Dr. Mengele. Which was pretty evident by the “don’t scream” comment when he was sewing cadaver skin onto me and telling me that it was an extremely expensive treatment.
Really folks that all I can manage for today. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you the Valium story.
10.09.09
Persistent Situational Depression
April 16th was a very good day. Aside from the morphine I was fortunate enough to get my breasts back. Not the originals, of course. These are the new and improved version. In JumboVision.
Yet it has taken me until today to see even more than a glimpse of my old self. I’ve been going through the motions of living distracting myself with new projects (http://www.fledgelingskeptic.wordpress.com) and just getting through the day-to-day aspects of living.
This afternoon I saw, for just a little while, that adventurous me. This is the part of me that takes unrestrained joy in just throwing a handful of clothes in a bag, getting in the car and driving just to see where we end up. If I had my way I wouldn’t be writing this entry right now. I’d be packing and getting ready to leave for who knows where.
Sadly, I don’t get to have my way. So that’s a bit depressing. This is the first time in years that I’ve seen that side of myself and it has been denied. Hubby would rather make plans for the weekend and stick with those.
While I’m depressed that I’m not going to be able to express that long-buried part of myself, I am so very happy to see that it still exists. I really thought it had long since died off. No more spontaneity. Ever.
I think that I had just gone through so much for so long that I got stuck in a situation-based depressive state. Now, almost six months after reconstruction, I’m finally returning to my old self.
I think it’s probably going to take a little while longer. I still have quite a bit of emotional recovering to do. I’m looking forward to the time that I don’t get sad during the first few weeks of October. I know that time will come. I just have to get to that point.
As people keep telling me, healing takes time. It’s not just the physical body that needs to recover. It’s everything else; the mental and emotional as well. It’s just a matter of time.
08.07.09
Why The Reboot?
I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post that as of Monday I would be starting my story over from the beginning. I’m sure many of you are wondering why. If you go back to my early blog posts you’ll see that although there is a little bit of detail, there are some unanswered questions.
When I first started this blog I was very emotionally unstable. I left out a great deal of detail simply because it was far too painful for me to talk about then. Now that I can think more clearly and have more distance, I can tell my story much better. The more details I can convey, the more benefit this blog has for you, the reader.
I’ll be taking the weekend off. Starting Monday 9/10/09 I’ll start back at the beginning. By the beginning, I mean I’ll talk about the self esteem issues behind the first plastic surgery and the role I feel society and commercialism contributes to low self esteem. In subsequent episodes I’ll also be talking about tuberous breasts and why they are considered a deformity.
To quote Heath Ledger’s character William in “A Knight’s Tale”: Welcome to New World. God save you, if it is right that he should do so.
08.04.09
Progressively Moving Backward
I am incredibly frustrated at how slowly I seem to be healing. Is this my body’s way of saying “Sit down and shut up!”? I had a couple days of higher level activity and last night I ended up taking half a Darvocet because I was spiking a 3-4 on the Oh-My-God-It-Really-Fucking-Hurts o’meter. Today I was a little sore but no big deal so I sorted piles of old mail. Now I’m at about a three again. I feel like I did two weeks out of surgery. I am ready and raring to go but my body itself keeps planting a metaphorical hand in my chest and shoving me back into the chair. I can almost hear some big tough guy from the Bent Nose Brigade telling me “Siddown an Shaddap”.
What’s sad is that in the back of my mind I feel like I’m being lazy. I feel like I should be doing SOMETHING. Yes I understand on a logical level that writing this blog helps people and that’s doing something. With our finances the way they are though and this being our business slow season I feel like I should be doing something to contribute economically to our household.
People tell me, and I’ve passed this advice on to others, my job is to heal. But for how LONG? Someone emailed me a few days ago saying she wants her life back.
So do I sweetie. So do I.
07.27.09
Talk Dirty To Me
I admit it. I have a problem communicating my needs to my partner sometimes. I really don’t want to be a bother or a burden. I’ve been enough of that already in our 13 years of marriage. When it comes to things for the house or for others, I have no problem talking to him about those needs or desires. When it comes to my personal needs, especially when it comes to my breasts, I just seize up and turn silent.
I had it stuck in my head that my breasts were ugly, wedge shaped flaps of skin and for my 40th birthday I wanted beautiful breasts. Honestly I’ve always wanted beautiful breasts since the bra fitter at the local store when I was 15 said I should have teardrop shaped breasts and I didn’t. Of course at that age ANY girl is looking in a broken mirror. But that right there is the first incident that set me up for this screaming disaster.
Ken said if I could find a way to have the surgery then I could. So I did. I found a surgeon who was part of our barter network in Orlando. I checked him out and found that he had no record of misconduct and no pending or former law suits. To my eager mind, it was perfect. So I scheduled the surgery. If you haven’t read my blog before, please go back and read the first post to see what happened.
What is a barter network? It works like this: Say you have a product or service that someone pays you $100 for. You then take that $100 barter dollars and use it with anyone else in that barter network OR its affiliate networks. This surgeon was in that network. I’ve also gotten contact lenses, housekeeping, printing and LOTS of other stuff on barter. So it just made sense to me because I wanted pretty boobies THAT BADLY. I was obsessed.
Of course after the implants came out, the surgeon said he would perform the reconstruction for no additional cost. My bad decision had already cost us enough so I agreed to make Ken happy. I didn’t want to be any more of a burden than I had already been with all the appointments and V.A.C. bandage changes. As mangled and emotionally messed up as I was, I was convinced, even though Ken had never given any indication, that if I made any more waves, I could end up alone.
It took my best friend threatening to kill him while we were up in Atlanta for a visit (goodness knows she was serious) if he took me back to the guy who did this to me in the first place. I just wasn’t brave enough to tell him what I needed. I was just SO terrified that I felt frozen in place. I can only guess that he was going through his own mental issues because he never seemed to notice how terrified I was when we went to see the surgeon. But then, I used to act, so I put on the brave face of a good soldier and just dealt with it. After all, I was damaged goods in my mind. If I made too many waves, he would well within his rights just to leave. That’s how insecure, neurotic and emotional I was.
I would like to think that eventually I would have found the courage to tell my husband what I really needed but I honestly don’t know. I’m grateful that I had someone in my life who knew just by looking at me that there was something terribly wrong.
My point here is that if you’re going through a really difficult time like this, find a way to talk to your partner. If you have to write a letter or even seek out a therapist, do it. Communication with your partner is the most important tool in your tool box. In all likelihood, your partner feels just as helpless as you do.
07.19.09
Briefs
***I’m STILL waiting for a call from Dr. Elliott regarding the whole weight loss/losing boobie volume issue. This is really the first time I’ve actually been truly disappointed with him. He didn’t call last week nor did his PA. Needless to say I’m somewhat miffed. I’ll be looking for an explanation when I call on Monday. I know he sees patients then.
***I heard back from Paul about the prosthetic nipples. He said he can do anything I want. So NOW all I have to do is decide what I want. Not as easy as it sounds. If I decide not to opt for surgery, these babies are my nips for life. Or until the wear out and I have to get new ones.
Mail order nipples… Now THERE’S a modern concept for ya.
***A friend of mine from another site who just recently started reading my blog said that I need to “pull myself out of the Abyss”. Someone else pointed out that the word “survivor” is frequently used as a crutch. Now THAT took the wind out of my sails. Those two comments have me wondering just how much of this blog consists of me whining about how truly awful things have been. I would LIKE to think that there is some helpful information in all of this. As for pulling myself out of the Abyss, THAT is what this blog is about for me. I have been in some very dark places since this all began. The things I’ve been discussing are surface issues by comparison. I know I still have healing to do.
There are times when I’m not very good at recognizing my limitations and boundaries. This is one of those times. I’m still somewhat enmeshed in the misery I suffered. Some days it clings to me like cobwebs. I wonder how much longer this sorrow will be with me. I suspect it will be years more because I have a book to write.
I also have allowed a few people to have a great deal of influence in my life. I wonder sometimes how much I’m doing just to make them happy and how much of what I do are things that *I* want for me. It’s difficult when I can’t seem to separate my desires from theirs FOR me. Not long ago I was explaining to someone that I tend to analyze the crap out of everything. So I am. It’s just part of the “Maria” package.
***That troublesome spot on my back has mostly scabbed over. Now it’s just a matter of time before it completely heals up. The wet-to-dry bandages really helped. The other side that had separated and scabbed is healed up now and has blended into the rest of the scar line.
***Intimacy has the most beautiful bras and panties for DDD+ cup sizes. The engineering that goes into these bras is phenomenal. Unfortunately, their customer service is HORRIBLE! I’ve had to keep calling multiple times to check on a back order. I called three times and left two messages before someone called me back to let me know that my original fitter was no longer with the company. Then it took 20 minutes for them to find my original back order paperwork and verify that those items were ones I still wanted. At that point, after being placed on hold for about 5 minutes I was told they were out of stock but would be getting them in soon.
Six weeks later I got a message saying that my back order was in. So I called back, ended up leaving two messages in a week and FINALLY got a human being a week after that. It took another 20 minutes to find and verify my back order ONLY to be told that they were out of one item that I ordered and it would have to be shipped from the Boston store.
If Intimacy could just get their act together customer service-wise, they would be more popular than Victoria’s Secret. Intimacy’s lingerie is better made, more supportive and will last longer. PLUS they offer life time tailoring. If you lose a substantial amount of weight, they will tailor your bras to fit as many times as you want.
07.15.09
But I look like a…GIRL!
Yesterday I got a delivery of a new pair of athletic sandals that I’d be able to wear to the parks when I wanted to go looking a bit more dolled up. I didn’t want to wear hot, heavy tennis shoes that clashed with my casual dress or my skirt (yes, I only own ONE casual dress and ONE casual skirt. On purpose).
So of course, since I bought these sandals off the Net I wanted to make sure they worked color-wise with the outfits I bought them to go with. So I put on the skirt and the sea green top that looks the best with the beading on the skirt. I happened to catch a glimpse in the mirror of the whole outfit and I was broadsided by a City Bus Of Realization that…I Looked Like A GIRL!!
For the last two years I’ve been dressing in big, baggy clothes because anything tight exposed my mangled chest to the rest of the world. I didn’t want to do that to my family, let alone the entire population of central Florida. So I wore 2X tees and big, baggy cargo shorts that hid anything even remotely resembling a female figure.
I also spent two years avoiding mirrors, as I’ve mentioned before. I’m guessing this is just another one of those adjustment moments. I just feel conflicted. I’m overweight because, well there are more reasons than I can count. One of them is that I think I wanted to be invisible so people wouldn’t notice my chest. BUT, my hair is bright pink, so I really DON’T want to be invisible. I’m tearing up as I write this because I know that now I have another challenge to face and I’ve done this to myself.
For the last few weeks I’ve been saying that I’d rather be fat and happy than thin and miserable from dieting. I know that to be denial now. I’m just terrified beyond belief that if I lose weight then I’ll lose my breasts again…just in a different way and I will have done it to myself. AGAIN!
Yes, I still partially blame myself for the first time. If I hadn’t been SO insistent and SO obsessive about having “pretty boobies”, I never would have gone with the cheap surgeon. That part, at least, is my fault.
I think what I need to do is talk to Patti at Dr. Elliott’s office and find out for sure before I freak myself out and find a way to mentally justify staying at a weight that isn’t ideal.
In the mean time, here’s the outfit that got me broadsided by the City Bus of Realization.
