I tried going to the gym after I left work on Monday, but I was already noticeably tired and only ended up walking one mile on the treadmill. I had quite a few appointments and other things that I had to do in the mornings, so I didn't even try to go for the rest of the week. On Friday morning, I tried riding my cyclocross bike on the rollers for the first time since my surgery, and it went pretty well for the half-hour I put in. I'm going to try to keep up a regular roller habit in the remaining 12 days until my implant swap.
Work itself went well enough, although it was a little weird. Since most of my work is project-based, everything I was working on prior to my surgery was either put on pause or transferred to someone else. Since I spent the week figuring out when the paused work would resume and what new projects I would be starting, it mostly felt like practice going to work again instead of actually working. I guess that's better than coming back to an overwhelming pile of stuff to do immediately, and let's face it, I still needed the practice at getting dressed.
The one other awkward observation that I made was that about 70% of the people at my job don't actually know why I was out, so they don't know what to say to me now that I'm back. There are over 100 people in my department, and the director sent out an email to everyone the first day I was gone but didn't give details. It totally makes sense that he wouldn't have given the details an email to everyone, but I had kind of hoped that more of the people who did know what was wrong with me would have told more the people who didn't while I was out. It's been very weird having people ask how I'm doing, and my not knowing how to answer at the appropriate level detail. I've mostly been defaulting to "Pretty good. I have one more minor surgery on March 14, and then I'll be done." I have no idea if this is helpful or not, but it satisfies my need to explain why I'm going be out again so soon after returning without having to tell the whole story to everyone to whom I talk.
As for the appointments that kept me out of the gym all week, they included my first session of physical therapy, a "massage", and my pre-op appointment for my implant swap. The physical therapy was pretty uneventful, as the therapist agreed that trying to do any substantial work before my implant swap might not be a great idea. So my exercises are mostly just stretching my arm up over my head against the wall or a table. It was good to at least get some professional guidance as to what is and is not okay in regard to pushing my physical limits right now.
As for the massage, someone else who had recently had a double mastectomy referred me to a massage therapist in town who has special training in mastectomy recovery. I went to see him once about 2.5 weeks post-op, but at the time I wasn't healed enough for him to do any serious work except for trying to calm down my angry lats and hips. When I went back on Thursday, it was a much different story. He actually spent about 75% time using suction cup machine to go over all the scar tissue around the edges of my expanders and in my armpits. This was pretty painful and a little scary, but I reminded myself that he had a lot of training and experience with this stuff and tried to trust that he wouldn't cause any damage. It seemed to have worked since when I showered immediately after, I discovered that I could finally shave my left armpit for the first time in five weeks. Although I've been a bit sore since then, the "iron bra" feeling when I wake up in the morning has been significantly reduced.
Finally, I had my pre-op appointment for my implant swap surgery yesterday. It was a little weird having it that far out, but apparently, there weren't a lot of appointments available. It was pretty annoying because it was basically just sitting there listening to a nurse read off the information booklet that they'd given me at my previous appointment, which was 90% the same as the booklet from my last surgery. Since the appointment, my excitement about getting the next surgery done has been dampened pretty badly.
Part of it is a just a generally bad mood from having to listen to long condescending explanations of things like why I can't have gum or mints the morning of the surgery. I don't use gum or mints normally and it's my third surgery in four months. I know the drill. The other part is the anxiety that comes up from having to sit there and listen to someone read all of the crappy parts of having even minor surgery and all of the things that could possibly go wrong. I'm technically supposed to go back to the 45-degree arm restrictions for two weeks after the next surgery, and I'm getting stressed about that. I really don't want to have to take more than a few days off work since I just came back, but I just don't think that arm restrictions and physically going into the office are compatible.
In general, dealing with the plastic surgeon's office is so much worse on so many levels than it is with my surgical oncologist's office. It might have something to do with the majority of their patients being there voluntarily, so they're less understanding about how hard it is when you didn't choose the implant life, the implant life chose you. The doctor himself is nice, and as I've said before, he's known for his good work, but often the way that they do things is making an already unpleasant experience even worse.
All I can do at this point is hope that the next 12 days go by quickly and that everything goes right instead of all of the things that can go wrong. The two big milestones to which I'm really looking forward are waking up from the surgery to the news that everything went well and when the two-week post-op period is finally over. I'm getting very anxious to move on with my life.
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