Dancing My Tits Off (Wait - They're Already Off)

I met my goal this week of returning to Zumba class by six weeks post-surgery. I was a total bad-ass, too, although I found I couldn't jump. (That surprised me, because my trial run was doing the Cha Cha Slide with my pre-k class, and I danced like a, well, like a 5 year old.) And while I had a little pulling around the abdominal incision, what I DIDN'T have is pain from swollen, tender, fibrocystic breasts. Yay!


The stitches came out of my newly created nipples this week, and I must say, the entire package is going to be spectacular when the entire reconstruction process is complete. Without the black stitches sticking out all over, the nipples no longer look like freaky cockleburs. They are still oversized, rather like nipples that have been nursed on by a baby barracuda named, oh, let's say, Kyle, but they look normal. Okay, normal-ish. 

One part of the nipple surgery kind of creeps me out: Dr. Geter reopened the original incisions across the equator to do God only knows what part of the nipple creation. I knew there were steri-strips across them, but I didn't realize until the strips were removed that they were covering new stitches. Not entirely sure why it bothers me, but it does. Maybe he should have installed a zipper. This is the third time he's gone in there.

I was admiring the new boobies in the mirror this morning as I was getting ready and realized the incision lines are not exactly straight. They don't look like a scenic byway on a road map, but they do have a bit of a wave to them. I pointed it out to the husband, telling him that this would be the work of Dr. Bumberry, the general surgeon, to which my husband replied, "Think what he had to work with. You were lying down on your back, and he had to pick them up out of your armpits to make the incisions." (Lest you're new to this blog and think they were in my armpits because I was well-endowed, the truth is I never was, and the reason they were in my armpits at all is that they had lost their will to live after nursing my kids.)

So, even though my family very quickly returned to treating me like they always did, my return to Zumba signified a real step closer to being back to my old self. My old self with new tits. And cancer. Can't forget the cancer. Damn! And I was so close....