The sandwich cookie method

Guess who got her drain removed today?! 🙋🏽‍♀️ Guess who also got her sutures out today?! 🙋🏽‍♀️

Yes! I wasn’t even expecting the drain to be removed. Remember Dr. Shuck told me that it needed to stay in until surgery, but the drainage was so beginners that he decided to remove it today. I was over the moon. Do you know how many times I’ve almost accidentally ripped this drain out? So happy to be done with it for a while.

The sutures were removed next. It was weird that I could only feel some of them being removed. And as he told me it would, my boob looks so much better with a line from sutures than with a round blemish. Honestly, now that I don’t have to live with it anymore, it really did look like a second nipple. 😂

And that’s where today’s good news ended. I’ve concluded that Dr. Shuck is the master of the sandwich cookie method. I’m sure you all are familiar with the sandwich method. That’s when bad news is flanked with good news to lessen the impact of the bad news. You’ve seen this before. Here’s an example: A teenager asks his parents for a “muscle car”for graduation. It’s all the rage. All of his friends have them. Well, the parents agree to a a car as the graduation gift, decline the muscle car, and purchases a Nissan Altima instead. The sandwich cookie method. (The teenager in this example may or may not have been my son)

Dr. Shuck informed me that my reconstruction surgery won’t occur until October. 🥺🥺😩😩😢😢. No actually he said, “early, mid, or late October.” And I get it. I understand that we have to be careful moving forward so that we don’t have to go backwards. Lord knows I don’t want to go back to the operating room before my next planned surgery but sheesh .. I was hoping for September, not October. But he’s the boss, and he if says we need to tread carefully, then that’s what we’ll do.

So here is where I do my positivity thing and find the silver lining ..

Well, I guess I will have more time to improve my mobility and strength before reconstruction. This will make recovery a lot easier. But on the other hand, it gives Tom, my PT, more time to torture me twice a week with light weights and resistance bands during physical therapy. In this morning’s session, I even broke a slight sweat (or maybe that was a hot flash) before he told me that “I am in much better shape than all of his other post-chemo patients.” Well, duhhhh Tom. I am also Wonder Woman in real life 🙄. You can’t compare me to mere mortals. (Just kidding, lets not get any ideas Tom).

Tom is pretending to be an iPhone novice so that I hold my rep longer. So sadistic. 😏

So that’s that. This week, like every week, has been full of emotions. I’m just out here trying to do my best. I’ve never proclaimed to be perfect. I’m being patient with myself. Give yourself the same courtesy.

❤️T