Ok we are going to get up close and personal because I have been bad about updating so I’m backdating my entries and am going to describe what is happening.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY AHEAD NSFW

 The recovery so far has been good. I’m exhausted all the time but I don’t have to take vicodin during the day which is great. So basically at 3 weeks out you don’t need heavy painkillers however the breasts are still pretty swollen and movement is very limited. I can take showers by myself, completely. Arm range of movement has gotten a thousand times better. This is when the doctor cut the sutures btw which is why I now have pictures. Also just as a note, when the sutures come out it’s like instant relief. At this point the sutures are really doing more harm than good because they are preventing your skin from healing. That said, it kinda sucks to have a doctor digging around in your scars with tweezers and tiny scissors to cut them out. So just be prepared for that. I typically don’t take vicodin during the day anymore but in preparation for the sutures being cut, I took one 30mins before I left to go to the doctor. You have to figure out what timing works best for you to know when it’s going to kick in at the right time but that is a good guideline to go by. For me, I hate taking vicodin if I’m not in severe pain. Lots of people say that it’s addictive but personally, if I’m not in a position where I think I may want to kill myself if I don’t get some painkillers I don’t take vicodin because my response to vicodin without the pain is severe nausea and dizziness which are known side effects. So beware of being too liberal with your pain killers. Sometimes that leads to very interesting and not so fun results. Thankfully I’ve had a very understanding partner who helps me figure these things out and has really helped me through this whole process.

So in this picture above you can see the right breast is actually rather intimidating with the giant silver dollar size hole (that I really was concerned was never going to heal). But the good news with this side is that the entire line coming down was healing up quite well except for where they all meet at the center right there. Personally I find it fascinating that doctors seem to think it’s totally cool to leave a giant hole in your body and say, “yeah that’s totally normal, it’s a little scary and you’ve made a bit of a mess but you’ll be fine” the mess part referring to bleeding all over yourself because they took the sutures out of your now open wounds. But you know sometimes you just gotta have some faith, right?

So the left side, I thought was looking quite a lot better, especially because the giant hole was less silver dollar size and more quarter size. So the up and down bit wasn’t quite as clean and there was a bit of a hole there but overall it seemed like the side to bet on if you were going to be placing bets on this kind of a thing. There’s quite a lot of red and green and yellow in there too which is gross and sometimes a bit scary to see but I was explained that this is normal and since it didn’t look inflamed this was ok. So here I am trying to move on with my life.

The current state at just past week 3 is that things are getting better. I can wear a loose-ish sports bra and going about with my daily life and I’m not too hindered. I still get tired pretty easily and I definitely need valium and vicodin to be able to sleep. However beyond that things seem to be on schedule.