Fill ups (1 of 2)

It was arranged so that I could get my tissue expanders filled up in Kelowna so that I didn’t have to travel to Vancouver so much. The plastic surgeon’s office in Kelowna was where the reconstruction group meetings are held so I was familiar with the head nurse who runs the group. She is so wonderful - really nice and caring and so helpful.

I met with both the nurse and the Plastic Surgeon in Kelowna and we set out a fill up schedule of 100cc once each week until my radiation appointment on Dec 29th. That meant 2 fill ups in two weeks. It was a pretty aggressive schedule and not how they normally like to expand the tissue expander. The aggressive schedule wouldn’t hurt the expansion process, it just might hurt more. The nurse was concerned that it would be really uncomfortable for me, but I wanted to ensure I was ‘filled-up’ before my radiation appointment so I said we should proceed.

The first fill up went fairly well. My body definitely has looked different after every fill up. For this fill up, I noticed a curve on my chest as a ‘normal’ breast would have. I was a bit uncomfortable during the week and had to take ibuprofen to manage the pain. The pain was mostly pressure on my chest, aching in my shoulder, and then some muscle pain in my back.

My last fill up was a bit more uncomfortable – the last 5cc put a lot of pressure on my chest and I had to focus on breathing. But we got it all in there! I have been on ibuprofen since then, but every day seems to get a little easier.

My chest looks….well, different. The tissue expander is round and does look like a normal breast – well normal and very perky! The big difference between the two sides of my chest is the location of each breast. The right side is where a breast would normally sit. The left side (with the tissue expander) sits really high on my chest – almost where the top of your breast bone meets your shoulder.

So while I might be even, I’m definitely lopsided. But for now that’s alright – the fill up process is now complete!