BoobNews: "Grody to the abs, dude" edition

I ended up spending five days on the Intermediate Care unit (IMC) at Seton after my surgery, spent this past weekend at home, and then headed over to my plastic surgeon's office yesterday for follow-up. Thank you to my sister who came in from Houston to perform chauffeur duties for me.

While I was there, my plastic surgeon's PA, Rachel, assessed how upright I'm allowed to stand for this week. Apparently I'm healing well enough that I can stand a little more upright without risking pulling my abdominal incisions apart. That meant I got to raise my bad-ass walker up by two more notches. Sure, the blacking-out made raising it up take a few more minutes, but sometimes coolness requires trade-offs in practicality. No one's gonna separate me from my speed-demon walker. I think I'll name her Louise. Although, honestly, Louise could use a cup holder, and maybe a basket, but I'm afraid they might create too much drag. Gotta stay streamlined.

As far as healing goes, I have to say that despite this surgery being much more extensive than the double mastectomy, the acute pain this time is much less. That's largely thanks to the drains being much less uncomfortable. That said, Rachel, was able to pull all four of the drains yesterday, and I'm still glad to have the dumb things out. While I was there, she also assessed the healing of my abdominal wound, my new belly button, and the incisions on my new boobs, and pronounced them all as great. She and my IMC nurses (all of whom were great - I highly recommend them for all of your reconstructive recovery needs) say that my wounds all look and are healing better than average. Woo! I love being an over-achiever!

So that brings us to the grody part. Those of you who aren't interested, thanks for reading this far and I'll keep you updated in the future. Those of you (fellow) weirdos who love to see medical/somewhat gross stuff, feel free to revel in my small abdominal incision...