Right now I'm going through the 'tissue expander fills' stage. This link will take you to an page on expansion that was passed on to me by my friend Dar and is the best explanation I've seen. Thanks Dar :)
My first fill was on Tue/Mar/3 and like so many other phases of mastectomy and reconstruction, I had read nothing but dread and doom about it. Not once had I read or heard a woman say 'Oh, the fills aren't so bad'. All I was hearing/reading was 'The fills are horrible, the pain is almost unbearable'. So... I was scared beyond reason trying to prepare myself for my first fill... preparing for the (to me) unknown. I think I slightly overcompensated and went in to the Plastic Surgeon's office telling myself 'this will be a snap'! After all, everyone said the 'Drains' were hell... and I seemed to navigate them okay! I was in for a wee bit of a rude awakening!
The 'fill' itself wasn't so much the problem... it's the muscle spasms and tightening that takes place for about 48 hours afterward. Since the skin across the front of my chest (aka under construction and becoming my 'breasts' :) is totally numb,I don't even feel Dr. Miles (or her assistant Cheryl) locating the metal port with a magnet, that's on the expander, that's under my skin, that's behind the muscle that used to be attached to my ribcage! I do however sometimes feel the needle as it penetrates the muscle! The first time it almost made me jump out of the chair... but yesterday (when I had my second fill) I knew what to expect, the fear wasn't so overbearing... the pain was minimized... even though the experience was pretty much the same.
After some pretty heavy duty pain on the night of my first fill, I got the picture that this phase wasn't going to be 'a snap' and needed to be shown the respect (and pain medication!) it deserved. All I hoped for was that 'fill #2' would be no worse than 'fill #1' and so far ... so good! 'They' say the fills get worse as you go along (I'll probably need 4 - 5) ...but I say... perhaps that's only if you're toting fear along with you? For now I'll just try to take it one day (sometimes one hour!) at a time... all the while keeping my mind focused on those 'squishy, almost real feeling foobs' (foobs = fake boobs) that I love reading/hearing about that come at the end of this trip! Some women actually call them 'their reward' :) ... I just think I'll be happy to get on with life... and call them 'My Boobs'!
