Elliott went to Scotland for a day of work and when he came back he obviously wanted to inspect the goods. But he noticed a bit of a dark crescent on my nipple. I hadn’t noticed it, and had probably thought it was just a shadow.
But they called in two nurses and a doctor to stare, at my nipple. They all said it looked fine but that they’d watch it over night.
I thought two things at this point. 1: OMG please don’t let me lose my nipple. I know they can go black due to poor blood supply and then I’m fairly sure they have to be cut out and then you’re left with an empty boob. (Don’t google mastectomy nipple necrosis if you ever want to sleep again)
And the second thing I thought: Oh crap, they are going to wake me up every couple hours to look at my nipple. And they did. All night long it felt like someone was coming in to have a sneaky peek under my gown. I didn’t even bother putting a blanket up around me as that would just make the process take longer.
They don’t think it’s changed, but now I’m on edge. I’ve been laying here since Tuesday with a heavy towel on my chest to keep my boob warm and the vessels dilated so I can keep my nipple. I can’t lose it now!
The other thing weighing on my mind is whether or not I should have gotten the other boob done at the same time. I know Elliott and I spoke about it, but only briefly and it was more around let’s just wait to see what the genetic testing shows us.
But I don’t want to have chemo again. I don’t want it a third or even fourth time. It damages your heart, it numbs you, it poisons you so you can live. I can’t keep coming back to this experience thinking my boobs are going to kill me. So we’re still going to wait for the results and then make a tough decision. This surgery was not as bad as I thought it would be so I know I can do it again if I have to. But I’d do anything to stay on this Earth just a little bit longer.