Fill 2

A few hours after the first fill, I thought it would be easy. Although my chest felt stretched, I didn’t feel any pain—that is, until I woke up at 3am and hobbled to the bathroom to grab some Advil. For this second fill, I was prepared. I took a valium after I returned home. It didn’t help with the pain, which was more acute than the first time, but it helped relax my muscles. And no middle of the night wake-up. 

The second fill made the expanders less pinchy as they rounded out a bit more. Not only did I feel stretched, I felt like I desperately needed to nurse which is ridiculous because I don’t have any mammary glands and the expanders are behind my chest muscle. Nonetheless, I felt like I needed a baby sucking on these phony tits of mine.

I also got a lesson on what it means to be curious when I asked the nurse if I could see an expander.

It looks so innocent and marshmallowy soft in the nurse’s hands, but it’s quite menacing. My tits are rock hard and uncomfortable. The center alien eye is where I’m stabbed deep through my muscle. Interestingly, the only metal in the expander is the magnet circling that orifice. I could have sworn there was metal touching my ribs. Also, it had been difficult to sleep because I was confined to my back. A week ago I carefully rolled onto my side for the first time since the surgery, hugging a large pillow to my chest with two little pillows shoved under each armpit and a lower one in-between my legs. The amount of pillows I’ve accumulated in the middle of our bed has made a wall. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Jason asked. 

The nurse is entirely fascinated by the reconstruction process and her words come out in chirps. 

When she flipped over the expander to show me the other side, she casually mentioned that the three tabs are stitched onto my ribcage to hold it in place.

“My ribcage???!!”

“Well, the facia of your ribcage.”

“Disgusting!”

“The stitches haven’t dissolved yet, so you probably feel them pull.”

“Gross! But my left arm is still tight.”

“That’s from the lymph node removal. And to make sure they removed all the mammary glands, they also scraped your skin.”

“Oh my god.”

And, yes, I do feel a dull inner tug deep within my ribcage whenever I reach high or move my torso. And now I know why.