In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, let’s just pick up where we left off. Last we talked; I had just finished up with 16 rounds of chemotherapy. That was a tough battle but definitely triumphant! God is so good! Our next steps would be surgery. This was a huge ordeal because I was more afraid of surgery than chemotherapy. Then we had to decide what we should do about these breasts. We opted for a Double Mastectomy where both breasts are completely removed. Pause. Wait!!! What???!!! I have had this ample bosom all my life, what am I going to do without them? My clothes will feel different, will my husband still be attracted to me? Would I miss them??? The answer is yes to all the questions, life goes on and I would learn to find my new normal. Yall know I had to go through my five-minute Pity Party and then I dusted myself off and kept moving. On a new mission, I grabbed my phone and like any normal woman would do, I went straight to Amazon!

Step 2 - Surgery, Healing from a Double Mastectomy, Great News and Setbacks

During our Pre-Surgery consultations, one of my doctors got me excited about reconstruction. So, what happens is, once my surgeon has removed the breasts and tissue, a plastic surgeon will go in and insert spacers to prepare for reconstructive surgery that would happen at a later date. It sounded so easy, and I felt like WOW, I’m finally going to get that breast reduction I always wanted. Shawn blurted out “Yayyyyy, you’re gonna get new titties! Perky ones!” We chuckled quite a bit about that, and it felt like a silver lining in what was initially a nightmare.

Now it’s time for surgery. When I tell you I have never been so scared. But we prayed and let God do the rest. My surgery took well over seven hours, and I struggled in recovery with keeping anything down which delayed things even further. It felt like the longest day ever. I just wanted to see my family. To see my husband’s face and hold his hand. Finally, after hours of waiting, I got to see them and go home. Yes! I made it through. Praise God!

I had two c-sections so I’m no stranger to pain. This took me right back to that pain. My goodness, not only are you all stitched up, bound, and soar, when you finally take the bandages off, you have these new areas under your arms that are stitched together. George and I call them “cutlets.” I kinda hate them. They are not sexy. I thought to myself, there must be a better way to sew these things up. Yuck. Along with the cutlets, you get the temporary, even more un-sexy, drain tubes that we had to drain two times a day. My poor husband was so good. He worked so hard comforting me as I looked at my deformed body, he cooked, cleaned, chauffeured me around to all my appointments, rubbed my feet, made tea, you name it. We had a pretty strong bond before all this but now, we’re super solid. I love that man. #getyouaGeorgebutnotmine.

After the healing journey began, we finally got the call that we are CANCER-FREE! To GOD be the Glory! I didn’t know how to receive the news and was in a state of shock for about two seconds, then George and I began praising GOD! Repeatedly! And guess what?? My hair was finally growing back!

We got better with each day that passed. Focusing on tiny milestones and chugging along. I had been seeing my Plastic Surgeon for a few weeks and began the process of filling my spacers to ultimately prepare for implants. Then all of a sudden, I got a pain in my chest that literally took my breath away.

In an effort to be far less dramatic than the situation actually was, I’ll just say it was cellulitis (an infection) that eventually led to other complications with the spacers, and I ultimately requested the spacers be removed all together. It’s not worth it! Not for my life. And off we go to an emergency surgery. It was successful Praise God. So, guess what I did……….I went right back to Amazon. Found a few sets of boobs and I wear them proudly today!

So many other changes were happening with my body, hot flashes, nails falling off, my unbalanced figure and negative self-image, fainting and panic attacks, neuropathy, eczema (I’ve never had it before), textured skin, achy joints, you name it. We felt it all and I’m still experiencing some.

Step 3 – Radiation Treatment

After the adventures with surgery, we kept moving along to our five-week Radiation Therapy schedule. I didn’t know what to expect here just like every other stage but here we go! If you are not familiar with Radiation, I had to go everyday, Monday -Friday, for five weeks. EVERYDAY! But I will say, just like with chemotherapy, I met some of the nicest medical professionals to walk the planet. These people really take care of you and my hat goes off to the professionals that make these less than comfortable experiences bearable. The team and I became fast friends with our two-minute giggle session before each treatment. I was actually sad when it was over.

To break it down, the total session is about 15 minutes, that’s undressing, lying on a table with my arms raised and listening to blues while the red light zaps away. My skin gradually began to change close to the end of the five weeks but OMG. Once the last session was over, that’s when I began to feel the pain of splitting skin and burns for a few weeks while my skin began to heal. You can see in the picture below that a portion of my neck was burned too.

Regardless of it all, I’m in excellent spirits and we’re taking each day as it comes. I’m choosing to really enjoy what I enjoy and tuning out the other noise. So, I say all that to say this, God is Real, Find Gratitude in Each Day, Love like there is no tomorrow, and my Christmas Tree is going up this weekend.

Love you all and Until next time,

 -Kimberly