Quilting vs Breast Reconstruction

It wasn't "unexpected". I knew it was coming. But now it's almost here and, darn. Another period of "no quilting" coming for me in the near future.

Last June I discovered I had breast cancer. The kind of cancer it was plus my high-risk status caused my doctors to decide to do surgery - lots of surgery. So I had my remaining ovary removed in late July and three weeks later a bilateral ("double") mastectomy. I opted to go ahead and start reconstruction - and for the last six months have been living with "expanders" in my chest.

Expanders are interesting contraptions. They are sort-of "temporary" breast implants. They have a special port (made partially of metal, I'm told) through which saline solution can be injected - thus "inflating" the bags. The reason we inflate this way is that breast implants are actually positioned under the pectoral muscles (sounds impossible, doesn't it?). Just ramming the implants in would cause considerable pain and possible damage to the muscle. There's also the issue of mastectomies (like the one done on me) where the nipples and areola are removed as well as the "inside" breast tissue. These days there is such a thing as "nipple sparing mastectomies" - but with nasty breast cancer already found, well, nipples/areola are "breast tissue" and therefore subject to possible future breast cancer. So they went. This meant removing quite a lot of skin - and so the expanders are needed to stretch the remaining skin as well as the pectoral.

I've never actually seen one, but I can tell you what they feel like. They feel like partially inflated beach balls. A hideous feeling. At first they were darned uncomfortable. As the inflation process happened, they became less uncomfortable. Now, 6 months out, they still bug me. They don't wake me up at night, they don't ache - but I'm almost always aware of them.

As a matter of fact, I estimate that approximately 20% of my brain is ALWAYS focused on my "breasts" and the expanders inside them.

And if you're wondering what I look like "nekkid" these, well, Uh... not so hot. But that's OK... changes are in the works.

Anyway... as I said above, the expanders are temporary. And now, at long last, it's time for the "exchange surgery" - an operation during which my plastic surgeon (the fabulous Dr. Gillian) will remove these beach balls and replace them with lovely silicon implants (which we will call "permanent" implants although the truth is that they'll have to be taken out and replaced in 10-15 years). Dr. Gillian is, at the same time, going to grab some skin from "somewhere" (I don't know where yet) on me and construct nipples for me using skin grafting techniques.

So... soon, very soon, I'll be heading to hospital and Dr. Gillian will do her best to make me her masterpiece. As much as I hate the surgery, I'm soooooo excited to be getting through this next stage.

However... well... as I learned last year, you can't quilt with an IV drip in your hand - AND... even once I'm out of hospital... I'll have quite a few restrictions on what I can and cannot do with my arms (most noteably, not lifting anything that ways much more than a couple of pounds). That pretty much rules out quilting for a while.

How long?

Anybody's guess.