So..much..pain..

Today was my 5th saline fill. I'm now at 950cc's and have only about 200 more to go before surgery. Each week is more painful than the last - the pain continues through the weekend and ends shortly before the next fill. The pain is so bad I've been maxed out on my pain meds, which makes me pretty drowsy. It's not just the pain of my skin and muscle stretching, the pain radiates from front to back as the expanders are crushing downwards and pushing on a rib. So I've got lots of pain in my upper back region. I've been pretty freaken miserable, and I'm just so anxious to get it over with. The pain is exhausting! I haven't been sleeping well. It's cutting into my blogging time. I'm very uncomfortable with sitting upright or laying back....and the pain is even making it hard to walk on the treadmill, at least during the first few days - which really sucks because I've been wanting to walk around the neighborhood with my friend from around the corner. We walked last night - got a nice blister on my foot to show for it, but today I'm just in too much pain. I swear I can feel my chest wall on my right side ripping.
So that's where things are right now. Next week is Mardi Gras. Natalie's school parade is this Friday - so I'll have some pictures from that to post. She's out of school for Mardi Gras, so she'll be accompanying me to my fill next week. I hope the experience won't be too scaring for her. Knowing her interests, she'll probably be fascinated by it. Next week we're also getting our eyes checked, and I have a dentist appointment cause a pita crisp damaged one of my fillings - fun, fun! I just hope that my prescription for my glasses didn't change cause I don't want to have to get new ones - oh and I hope Natalie's vision is ok. Please let her have Ruben's eyes. She has his teeth, which is a good thing! Ok, well time to take more meds now. I'm really uncomfortable and can't stand leaning forward anymore. Just a few more weeks till it's all over!

Time Flies

Wow, I can't believe February is here already! Like January, it's going to be another busy month. Tomorrow is my brother's birthday, then later this month are the birthdays of my nephew, brother-in-law, and some friends. Then of course we have Valentine's, the anniversary of our very first "real" date, and Mardi Gras which Natalie has the whole last week off from school. I've got two more saline fills to endure then I will be heading into surgery. Personally I'm kinda hoping to do it Mardi Gras week, but we'll see how it plays out.

Friday I'm volunteering at Natalie's school for their diabetes school walk. Natalie has done very well with raising money and is very close to reaching her goal, we're hoping she will raise the most money this year. She corrected me yesterday when I noted that last year she placed 3rd when she actually placed 2nd - this year she's getting a lot of competition, so it's going to be a close call. If you haven't made a donation yet and wanted to, there is still time. All donations have to be turned in Friday morning - so you can still contribute online and receive a tax deduction. We haven't contributed yet as we are going to do it last.

We had a great weekend between Monster Jam and Super Bowl, though I am disappointed that the Cards lost. I think there were some questionable calls made - especially that last one. It should have been reviewed upstairs as Warner's arm was clearly moving forward, so it was not a fumble....and what about the unnecessary roughness of that one Steeler's player that repetitively hit a Cards player? It just was NOT right - however it did make for a good game, and having great food and company just made it all the better! Monster Jam was a lot of fun. I've got like 300+ pictures to go through and post. Grave Digger really tore it up and won the freestyle competition, then again he always does!

So, I'm sure that after my appointment tomorrow I'll be in some major pain for several days. Can't believe I volunteered at school knowing how much I'll hurt and how doped up I may be, but I really want to take pictures and be there for the whole thing. Luckily the walk isn't too long. Natalie also hinted that she'd like me to come to lunch one day, so I told her either Thursday or Friday I would come and bring McDonald's and have lunch with her. I should be good as long as no kids bump into me...hahaha. I'm sure to keep you posted, and I hope to get those pix up soon!

Looks like I may be heading back under the knife:

Went to see my surgeon today for another injection of saline. It seems that during all this time of trying to "push" my left expander downward and to the left has failed. Instead it has somehow shifted more to my right. Since I don't want a uni-boob and my surgeon wants to avoid that at all costs, depending on how my next visit is, he may have to schedule me for a day surgery, so he can make a pocket and place that expander where it should be. We also discussed why that side has been hurting me so much. It's mostly caused by the expander pushing against fresh scar tissue, in an effort to stretch the skin - the rest is just growing pains. I think that when he takes me back in, he plans to remove this area of dead hard tissue I have, that is near my original incision site. We also discussed how much saline I currently have in my expanders. According to his calculations they are both over 700, my left neing smaller than my right. He says that my right is currently at a size D, but for some reason it does not even look close to what I had imagined! I guess when it doesn't droop from pregnancies it just doesn't seem the same. I think I am really sold now on a DD, as I had envisioned bigger breasts. He wants to make sure that these expanders can hold that much without a problem. He mentioned before that they can go to 1000, but idealy they hold about 750 cc's. I hope that they can withstand at least one more good injection - I mean since I can't have my original breasts, then I want to make sure that I have exactly what I want - cause once this is done, there's no going back - and they're not like real breast that go up and down whenever you gain or lose weight. So I just want to make sure that I am 100% happy with them. I think that after nearly 3 years of what I've gone through I deserve at least that. He didn't really push a whole lot in the left side this visit, so while it may hurt now, it hopefully won't hurt me all week like the last injection did. Wish me luck!