It feels very odd to me that four weeks after my operation I'm generally behaving as if nothing has actually happened. My incisions are practically healed, I have an unbroken streak of between 8-9 hours of sleep a night and my head has finally cleared such that I can focus fully again. So far so good, and it continues to surprise me how well I'm coping. By the weekend I was completely off all painkillers and feeling much better for it.
However, I'm having a few tiny issues... When I went to the hospital last Tuesday a nurse assessed me and merrily sent me on my way but suggested that I call back on Friday evening to have them check my dressings again and briefly see my surgeon as part of the incision on my left boob isn't healing properly. I wasn't remotely concerned as the nurse didn't seem bothered and said it was all fine, but I liked the thought of seeing my surgeon purely for peace of mind if nothing else. It's safe to say Friday was a bit of a disaster. At the last minute my surgeon cancelled his clinic that so I had no chance of catching him, and when I got there the nurse I saw took one look at my left boob, panicked and called for a doctor. Neither the nurse or the doctor would tell me exactly what the problem was, just that it was fine, I shouldn't worry too much (which for the record medical people, just makes you worry more) but that I needed to see my surgeon urgently on Monday. I went home in panicked tears convinced my boob would drop off over the weekend, that I was riddled with an infection and that everything I'd gone through was for nothing.
(GIF SOURCED FROM www.buzzfeed.com)
I calmed down after a couple of frantic pep talks, a little cry on my own at home and half a mince pie, and spent the weekend trying to forget about my hideous left boob (I did consider hacking it off at one point but felt that ultimately it would do more harm than good). By Monday morning I was in a much more stable state of mind and headed back to the hospital determined to find out what was happening. It took a while to actually see my surgeon - during which time I sneakily took a look at the problem when the nurse had her back turned and almost thew up at the sight - but he breezed in and out in five minutes and completely alleviated my anxieties. In that time he checked everything with a giant smile on his face, cauterised my boob, said the scar would be fine and seemed generally over the moon at my progress. Job done: clearly I was flapping out of proportion to the problem! Thank god for that. It now stings like you wouldn't believe, hurts all the time and doesn't look quite right but in the spirit of Christmas I'm going to have a little faith and trust him that it will all be okay in the end. I'm going back in a fortnight but may end up popping back on Friday if I'm not happy to make sure it all looks okay before Christmas. I think being overly cautious in this situation isn't a bad thing at all.
(GIF SOURCED FROM www.buzzfeed.com)
I knew I'd been too lucky so far! I think it doesn't help that everything else has healed so unbelievably well that anything vaguely out of the ordinary looks horrendous in comparison. I don't know, but either way I'm trying not to be overly bothered as it's almost sorted now. I panicked because an incision opening up was my absolute worst nightmare and it's now happening, albeit on a smaller scale than I feared. At least it's only on a tiny section and not across the whole thing: it could be so much worse!
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To add insult to injury my skin is currently staging some sort of protest and I'm shedding skin like a sunburnt snake but hopefully a bucket of moisturiser will defeat that. Any recommendations on skincare would be welcome as Aveeno and E45 are not helping!
Ugh, Christmas cannot come fast enough! I think another viewing of The Santa Clause is in order after the last week...
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