Hello friends and readers, I am officially on day 5 of recovery from my exchange surgery, and I am woefully reminded that recovery sucks! I'm in a lot of discomfort in my chest (obviously) and my thighs, where they took some fat to "graft" around my implants. It's not fun. My spirits are pretty low and that will be reflected in this post.
I'm frankly annoyed that my doctors made this surgery seem like it was going to be a breeze. What I've slowly learned is that in cancerland, there are varying degrees of awful. Like with the third suite of chemo that I received- sure, it was LESS awful than the literal poison, but its still made me hazy, exhausted, and dehydrated. Sure, this surgery is LESS awful than the one where they took out all of my breast tissue and my tumor, but it's still pretty terrible to have gruesome sutures across your chest and bruising all over your legs. The fact that I've been through worse does not make this any less painful now.
For medical purposes, surgery itself went "well." I didn't have to have surgical drains, which is a huge relief. I had this view from my room when I arrived:
But I woke up alone, looking like shit:
Every day is a little bit better, but in general, I still feel pretty rough. Fuck cancer. Fuck these fake ass boobs. Fuck the original ones that were trying to kill me. Fuck that I have to get up tomorrow to go get an infusion while recovering. Fuck it all.
I can't leave without a little bit of gratitude though- thanks for all the messages and check-ins and fake booze (<3 katie+joe) and orchid (<3 audrey), thanks to Greg for giving me a kick in the butt and telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself, and thanks to my parents for being here to care for me despite the global pandemic we're still horrifically living. Thanks for those who are still reading this dinky little blog.
So that's it. For now, I'm thinking back to ten (!) years ago when travel was a thing and Nicole and I were romping around Europe:
I'm frankly annoyed that my doctors made this surgery seem like it was going to be a breeze. What I've slowly learned is that in cancerland, there are varying degrees of awful. Like with the third suite of chemo that I received- sure, it was LESS awful than the literal poison, but its still made me hazy, exhausted, and dehydrated. Sure, this surgery is LESS awful than the one where they took out all of my breast tissue and my tumor, but it's still pretty terrible to have gruesome sutures across your chest and bruising all over your legs. The fact that I've been through worse does not make this any less painful now.
For medical purposes, surgery itself went "well." I didn't have to have surgical drains, which is a huge relief. I had this view from my room when I arrived:
But I woke up alone, looking like shit:
Every day is a little bit better, but in general, I still feel pretty rough. Fuck cancer. Fuck these fake ass boobs. Fuck the original ones that were trying to kill me. Fuck that I have to get up tomorrow to go get an infusion while recovering. Fuck it all.
I can't leave without a little bit of gratitude though- thanks for all the messages and check-ins and fake booze (<3 katie+joe) and orchid (<3 audrey), thanks to Greg for giving me a kick in the butt and telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself, and thanks to my parents for being here to care for me despite the global pandemic we're still horrifically living. Thanks for those who are still reading this dinky little blog.
So that's it. For now, I'm thinking back to ten (!) years ago when travel was a thing and Nicole and I were romping around Europe:
With love from my couch in Brooklyn, dreaming of Paris <3.
Love you Val!
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