No really...that WAS the last fill (FBtF)

Okay, so the fill which I described in my last post wasn't really the last fill. But I was close. I had MY LAST FILL (for real this time) on 2/12. The good doc said this one would really hurt. And the man is true to his word. This is the most painful fill yet. I usually stop hurting around the 36-hour mark--it has now been 4 days. Still hurts. A lot. I keep looking for stretch marks, because really, these things are huge. The good news is....

MY EXCHANGE SURGERY IS ON MARCH 1ST!!!

I keep reminding myself of that wee tidbit. When I wake up at 2am whimpering: March 1st! When I try to readjust my sitting postion and it feels like my chest is on fire: March 1st! YEEE! The end really IS near this time!

This fill hurts differently than the others have. The doctor pulled an unfilled tissue expander from a drawer to remind me what they look like. Here ya go:

I held it in my hand. They're NOT smooth, they have a texture to them that's like....hmmmm...it reminds me of a spray-in bedliner on trucks. Where that needle is in the pic--that's the 'port' that they add saline to once a week. On the backside, it's completely flat. That is the part that's just hurting my ribs right now. They're so expanded, that they're extremely hard, so when I breathe, there's nowhere for it to go, but to press into my ribcage. Fun stuff.

When I started down this bumpy road, I immediately went to the internet (why do we do that??) to try to find pictures of 'tissue expanders'. I wanted to see what my chest would look like. I found out that there are 2 types of pic on the internet (of what I could even find): 1. Those that look like regular boobs  2. Those that will scare the bejesus out of you. I knew full well not to expect #1, and I pushed option #2 to the back of my mind.

My chest is...well, it's not pretty. They're not the 'perfectly round and even' pictures I saw on the internet. Mine are misshapen. My left one looks much larger than my right one--because my skin and muscle stretched differently. I have a dent in towards my sternum on my left one. My left one also sits lower than my right. In pictures I found, there are smaller, angular scars. MY scars cover my entire 'breast'. Horizontally from one side to the other. Granted, they've healed nicely, but they'll just be reopened on March 1st. And I have no nipples--did I mention that?

My right side sits high, is pretty round, and looks like you could just knock it right off my chest. My skin is pulled so tight, that you can see the tension in it. It looks smaller than my left (they have the same amount of saline) because for some reason or another, right boob is putting up more of a fight than the left side. This side mimicks the shape of the tissue expander perfectly, while the left side is trying to be all artsy or something. Like I said...not pretty. Not HIDEOUS by any means, but not pretty.

I think i'm going to make one of those paper chains to count down the days to my exchange surgery...