It’s Rachel again! Back from my Benadryl induced haze. Thanks to Adam for his sweet blog post while I was busy dealing with my skin irritation from the tape. Thankfully, some cortisone, aquaphor, and aloe helped clear it up. I had another expansion on Monday and one of my friends from school was able to come. That was cool, because I think it’s a pretty interesting procedure to see as a nursing student, so I’m glad she got to watch. Plus we went back to my house and watched Bravo afterwards, which is always a plus.

The tissue expanders are rock hard and live up to their reputation of feeling like ski boots. It makes it very difficult to sleep but I’m slowly getting used to them. I should only have 2 more expansions left so I hope they settle in a bit more after that (although I’ve heard they never are truly comfortable). I’ve been reaching out to my community of friends who have had prophylactic mastectomies for advice and that’s helping. My in-laws came to visit this weekend and it was really nice to see them and we went out to dinner. Also, my mom went to multiple Redbox locations to rent The Other Woman for us to watch after my latest expansion, which was a fun distraction. Adam spent about 30 minutes trying to get all the remaining adhesive off me even though he was tired from work, he is such a rock (even more so than my expanders).

Today is the 3 week mark which is very exciting because I can lift my arms above my shoulders and can wear a non velcro bra (woo-hoo). I took an über cab to Nordstrom today and got some new wireless stretchy bras to sleep in.  I can also start light workouts but I’m waiting to see how my physical therapy session goes tomorrow before any cardio. So things are looking up and only 90 days until my outpatient surgery to switch the expanders to the much more comfortable implants (not that I’m counting or anything). There are some good things about waiting until December for my swapout. Most importantly, it will give me the best outcome for the final surgery. Also, I’ll be super busy with school so hopefully time will fly by. Also, Halloween falls into the time when I have my rock hard expanders in so I think I know what my costume will be this year (ps if you’ve never seen Mean Girls, rent it ASAP).