Hamburger Bun

OK, the reality is starting to sink in.



Up until this week, I had been pretty cheerful. Hey! Mastectomy and reconstruction: no big deal! I will go to sleep and wake up with a new set. Better than ever, in fact.



Oh, uh-uh.



I met with the plastic surgeon on Wednesday. News flash to Kate. Not one surgery, but two. And an itty-bitty scar on the underwire line? Think again. More like a huge honkin' scar that runs horizontally right across the front of my boob. In the first surgery, they basically fillet my pectoral muscle and stick in a thing called an expander. They use that to stretch the muscle out enough that an implant can go under there. Why does it have to go under the muscle? Why can't it go on top of the muscle like a real breast does? I looked at photos of other reconstructions: big, red, angry scars galore. And then there's the nerve damage. I was told to expect permanent numbness; or if feeling returns, only a little feeling.



I was taking that on board, though. I had a little cry, but I was getting used to it. Then, people I know started telling me how it's really going to be. One friend told me, "You need to manage your expectations. Think on a scale of one to ten, with ten being a reconstruction that looks and feels normal. This will be a four."



The worst was from the friend of a friend who had this same procedure fairly recently. She told me that she was not happy, either. When she flexes her pectoral muscle, this big diagonal crease shows up across the breast. She said that the shape is basically "a hamburger bun". She wears a prosthesis in her bra, since the hamburger bun doesn't fill her out properly.



I manged to accept the scarring, and even the limited feeling..well, I guess I could come to grips with it. But a hamburger bun?



The truth is that I'm going to look like the bride of Frankenstein.



I'm definitely sliding into a "woe is me" phase.