My Surgery Day and other things...

I'd been meaning to post pictures of my surgery day, but haven't gotten around to it yet. My mom was with me every step of the way during my hospital stay and took pictures of everything (well not the actual surgery, but you know what I mean.) Lots of girls post pictures of their foobs in various stages of reconstruction but this is the closest I'll get to that. :)

This is me at the plastic surgeon's office before heading to the hospital. This is while I was waiting on Dr. Cooper to get there to mark me before surgery

This is at the hospital back in the same day surgery room. I had just changed into my gown and was waiting on the nurses to come play 20 Questions with me and stick me with my IV and all that fun stuff

This one is a little blurry. I had gone back into pre-op holding only to be told that my other doctor (Dr. King- my BS) was running late. Notice the phone in my hand- I was frantically texting Mike and updating Facebook, trying to keep my mind off of the fact that I'd be taken back into my PBM any minute

My lovely hat right before surgery. SOO fashionable. Notice the marking on my chest (There was so much more..I was covered with marks!) At this point, Dr. King and the rest of my wonderful surgical team was there, we were just waiting on an OR to open up

This is me after the never-ending night I spent in the hospital. I had changed to my comfy pjs (that were a gift from my Aunt Bobbi) and had been moved (somewhat reluctantly on my part) to a chair beside my bed. I wasn't trying to cover up my flat chest- the doctor had ordered me to keep a warm blanket on my chest. I also had to have oxygen. The doctor was trying to help my right side, which was already showing signs of failing.

These aren't neccessarily my best pictures by a long shot, but I wanted to post them. Notice the lack of sleep on my face? And my glasses and no makeup. I had tried to straighten my hair that morning in a misguided attempt to make myself feel better before I left for the hospital. HOWEVER I was so distracted that I did a less than stellar job (notice the first few pictures). Luckily for me, my mom put my hair in a ponytail the next morning. I got to go home about 2-3 hours after the last picture was taken.

For those of you not keeping up with my blogs (shame, shame) unfortunately my right expander couldn't be saved. I got it removed a month after surgery. Then I have to wait 6-8 weeks to have a lat flap procedure done to reconstruct the right side. An expander will be placed under the flap so I'll eventually have a small implant and a lat flap on the right side and a bigger implant on the left. I've had several people ask me how the procedure will work. The PS will make a small incision on my back and cut part of the latissimus dorsi muscle. The muscle, or "flap" will be tunneled around to my chest and placed. Part of the skin will be used to close the incision, so the skin won't be stretched as tightly. The lat flap will have good blood supply as well. The PS has assured me that each side will look the same in clothes, and only the scar pattern will be different on the right side.I don't have the exact date for this surgery, but I've started kind of an approximate countdown clock for it anyway. After I have the expander behind the lat flap filled, I'll wait 3 months and FINALLY have the exchange surgery, so I'll start an approximate countdown clock for that as well. I'll change them when I have a firm date. I've located these pictures on the internet, as kind of a diagram of how the procedure is performed-

Now that I'm feeling better, I can start to worry about selling Mary Kay. I have added the link to my website under my Interesting Websites list. You should definitely check it out! I love Mary Kay products, so I'm excited about being able to sell it! And it'll be nice to have some extra spending money...it's a change not having a steady paycheck and still having little expenses. Of course, Mike has been wonderful, getting my prescriptions and buying groceries. The address to my website is www.marykay.com/mmalone27. You can ship your order anywhere for a low price! Ok, that's it for my shameless plug!

One problem I'm having is anxiety again. It's not as bad as it was before my surgery- but I worry about things going wrong. I constantly look at my scars, and analyze it. I mentioned this to another PS I saw (Dr. Cooper was out of town- and I needed to get my drain out) and he said he didn't blame me for worrying. He said I was fine, but it was completely understandable that I would worry because of everything I'd been through. Hopefully the worse is behind me and it'll be smooth sailing from here (and yes I knocked on wood!)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day tomorrow! I'm going to my Aunt's and Uncle's. I may not get in the pool,but it'll be nice to be around family and get out of the house. I'm slowly but surely getting back to normal. Pretty soon, it'll be time to ZUMBA again..I can't wait!!!!