The Wonderful World Of Tissue Expanders

Two weeks ago I found myself in line at the security check at LAX in route to Massachusetts to visit my family.  Standing in my socks holding my airline ticket in one hand and a note from my doctor explaining why my boobs will set off the metal detector in my other hand,  I took a breathe and walked through the scan. Yahoo- no beeps! Why may you ask am I sometimes setting off metal detectors?  Welcome to my love/ hate relationship with my tissue expanders.  
(There are different ways to reconstruct breasts after a double mastectomy.  The process I'm about to explain was best for me and my body type.)
After my surgeon removed my breast tissue,  a plastic surgeon came in and placed tissue expanders under my pectoral muscles. Tissue expanders are silicone bags with a port and a small magnet in the front of them that slowly get filled over time.  This procedure is done to create a space for the final implants by slowly stretching the skin and chest muscles.   Normally when woman go in for breast augmentation the implants are placed under the breast tissue but in the case of mastectomies, a pocket must be created. This is done by going under the chest muscles and also using a Acellular Dermal Matrix which is a skin tissue that comes from either a cadaver or a pig. My surgeon will be using Strattice which is the brand name for the pig tissue-no pig jokes please ;-)-oink oink .   
About  2 weeks after my surgery in April,  I went in for my first expansion. This is done right in the doctors office.  He first finds the port by using a devise that detects the magnet then he makes a mark. Once the port is located, he inserts a needle into the port. He first extracts some of the blue saline that was put in the expanders during surgery to make sure he is in the right place, then he injects about 50cc's  of saline in each expander. Besides feeling the needle going in and some pressure, the procedure isn't painful.  For the next two days I feel achy and just took ibuprofen for the pain.

Overall,  tissue expanders are just uncomfortable, ask anyone who has had them.  I can't lay on my belly or collapse my arms to one side while laying on my side.  Jumping jacks, jogging and even hugging feels a little uncomfortable.  The top halves are as hard as steal making me feel like RoboCop Mom.  While reading books to Teagan and Jordan they each sit in the nook of my arms and either bounce their heads around trying to get comfortable or  push on the top of them laughing and saying, "Mom, can you feel this? - Can you feel this?"  I take it all in stride and have laughed A LOT during this whole journey.  Don't get me wrong,  I am grateful for what will give me a pretty good end result considering I had both breasts removed but with that said  I am jumping for joy knowing they are coming out this Thursday.  My doctor wanted to keep them in for 6 months after my final expansion which would have meant having them in for 8 months but after my last appointment he noticed I rotated one.  He has never seen that before and even tried to rotate it back (ouch) without success. So because the rotation will effect the "pocket" shape, they come out early.   

As with any surgery I am a little anxious but my excitement to finally get my implants is overriding that emotion. The recovery I am told is about 2 weeks and a little longer before I start running and jumping again. I will let you all know how it goes as this part of my journey is almost completed. XO