Here I go Again

Well, May 30 is surgery day.  Supposedly it's scheduled for early morning.  Hopefully this procedure will be under 2 hours and since it's not horribly invasive like my January surgery, I  hope to be headed home by noon.  After visiting with the Physician's Assistant last week.  I know that I will have incision care for the next 6 weeks, but no drains and I probably won't need a lot of pain meds, there just aren't many nerves functioning in my breast skin any more.

Dr. N will do bilateral nipple reconstruction and tattoo the aerolas in as well.  She will also revise the incisions and remove the extra skin left after my last surgery.

So how do I feel almost 5 months post-op?  Pretty good most of the time!
*I still do not have the stamina that I did last fall.  My eyelids close just after 9pm usually and stay that way for a good 8 hours.
*I'm still timid or lack the chest wall strength to do heavy garden/lawn work that involves using chest muscles.
*My chest still feels strange.  It will never feel the same and at some point, my mind will hopefully adapt to the new normal.  With my mastectomy went all those estrogen receptors that created painful, swollen breasts every month.  So while there is no normal sensation in my chest, there also isn't the pain I used to live with.
*About the time we returned from our trip, I noticed the implants had started to settle and created a normal looking inframammary fold at the base of the breast. Dr. N. stitched this in at my mastectomy and it looked strange for the longest time.  The stitches have now dissolved and the results look and feel really good.

*That lymph node biopsy site is still pesky.  Women who undergo radical mastectomies or have to have large numbers of lymph nodes removed have my great respect!  It gets tight, sometimes there is slight swelling or just strange sensations.