3 Months... Yup - That's how long it took to grow a pair of boobs!
When I was told that Tissue Expanders would be placed underneath my muscle and that my surgeon would insert saline every week via a port on top of the expander (through my skin mind you) in order to stretch out the connective tissues, you can only imagine one's facial expression.
Of course I had googled the crud
out of this process :)
I have been stuck with so many needles at this point, meh, what's another one in my breast every week for 3 months?! I went into my first appointment to have the saline injected into the expander and was pleasantly surprised at how easy and quick the process was!
My doctor had bags of saline laying out on a table along with a VERY large needle to inject with. She grabbed this small magnet-finder device and found the port to my implant at the top of my chest. She then popped the needle into the port and started to inject saline into each one.
This process really depends on the person. I had started to feel pressure in my chest and had her stop at 75 CC's because it was getting a little hard to breathe through the tightness. After this first experience I had learned very quickly that taking in less at a time and more often was the way to go, unless you're on a mission!
I had started to go in every week for about a month then tapered off to every 2-3 weeks. I would have her put anywhere from 50-100 CC's each visit depending on how much ache and pain I was willing to go through during the days after. There was definitely pain involved and with skin and muscle stretching, I expected nothing less at this point.
What I wasn't prepared for:
My chest looked like an alien was growing inside of me. There is nothing PERFECT about this process and you really have to wrap your head around the fact that this is prepping your chest for the final outcome. It was impossible to wear any type of top and not look like I was completely lopsided. The saving grace throughout those 3 months was to wear the sports bras I was given when I had only 1 breast over the summer. These bra's had come with contouring pads. With the left breast that was seemingly up in my face, I had to manipulate the pads in the bra to create more thickness to match my right side.
Everything was disproportionate and the idea that I could have a "normal" looking chest after this was beyond my imagination. My surgeon said this had a lot to do with the fact that my Right Breast was an immediate mastectomy - to - expander swap out. My Left Breast was not, and I had gotten it removed 4 months prior to the expander surgery.
This photo was taken the morning of my Exchange Surgery (Expander - to -Implant swap) I was at 400 CC's and all of my trust was in the surgeon's hands, in making me look and feel like I had breasts again.
Talk about Faith.
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