posted Monday, 13 November 2006
Apparently, I've become fairly generic in my postings... and for that I do apologize. People keep asking me why I haven't updated my blog and the honest answer is that my life just really isn't that interesting. I could tell you all about my dog's newest trick (that's right -- Otis now knows how to roll over), just how clean I got my house before my mom came to house/dog-sit (you wouldn't have recognized it), my exciting travels for work (Ithaca, Troy and State College...) or my latest ultimate frisbee endeavors (ok - so maybe that one is interesting and I'll devote another blog entry to that)... but I'm just not sure that you're all interested in those musings... but since I do have another surgery upcoming, I figured I'd sit and give a quick update.
Surgery is this Thursday (Nov 16) at Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick. Relatively speaking, it should be fairly minor -- provided all goes well, I should be home the same day. They are swapping out my tissue expander and replacing it with a permanent implant (the technical term for it is "exchange surgery").
I did have to do a bit of thinking about what type of permanent implant I wanted. You may or may not know that silicone implants are being used in clinical trials for women having reconstruction after mastectomy. The latest silicone implants are called "cohesive gel" and they are the consistency of a gooey gummy bear. The idea is that even if the implant were to rupture (which, by the way... all implants rupture eventually... in fact, they only last 10 years on average and then you have to get them replaced! I had never heard that before), it would suck back into the implant instead of leaking out into your body (another aside- they still haven't proven whether silicone leaking into your body really causes harm, but I can't imagine that it's as benign as saline, which just gets absorbed by your body). The benefit of silicone is that it looks and feels more natural. Especially for women who have had a mastectomy (and have no natural tissue/fat on top of the implant), saline implants can look and feel very very fake. At the end of the day, I've decided to go with saline, at least for now. We'll see what the research shows 10 years from now, when I have to get it replaced! I'm just looking forward to getting rid of the rock hard grapefruit buried under my pec muscle... I'll let you know how it goes!
LC
Surgery is this Thursday (Nov 16) at Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick. Relatively speaking, it should be fairly minor -- provided all goes well, I should be home the same day. They are swapping out my tissue expander and replacing it with a permanent implant (the technical term for it is "exchange surgery").
I did have to do a bit of thinking about what type of permanent implant I wanted. You may or may not know that silicone implants are being used in clinical trials for women having reconstruction after mastectomy. The latest silicone implants are called "cohesive gel" and they are the consistency of a gooey gummy bear. The idea is that even if the implant were to rupture (which, by the way... all implants rupture eventually... in fact, they only last 10 years on average and then you have to get them replaced! I had never heard that before), it would suck back into the implant instead of leaking out into your body (another aside- they still haven't proven whether silicone leaking into your body really causes harm, but I can't imagine that it's as benign as saline, which just gets absorbed by your body). The benefit of silicone is that it looks and feels more natural. Especially for women who have had a mastectomy (and have no natural tissue/fat on top of the implant), saline implants can look and feel very very fake. At the end of the day, I've decided to go with saline, at least for now. We'll see what the research shows 10 years from now, when I have to get it replaced! I'm just looking forward to getting rid of the rock hard grapefruit buried under my pec muscle... I'll let you know how it goes!
LC
Comments:
1. Maura left...
Wednesday, 15 November 2006 11:09 am
I like your rock hard grapefruit.
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