Monday was the first time I'd seen the surgeon for 2 weeks. The daily nurses have been busy scratching away at my nipple scabs so I was hoping he'd approve the progress and not have to cut and scrape again today. He was happy with the progress. The left is almost healed although it bleeds a bit. The right is still an open wound but the flesh has grown higher nearly up to the level of the rest. He explained that the wound would scab and heal over so the nipple has a pinched effect. Not perfect, not as beautiful as it was, not normal and annoying since this side is the side that was not affected by the cancer, so another price to pay.
I know, a relatively small price, but nonetheless. He can maybe do something surgical one day to improve the look.
He took some more photos with his iphone (not my face!)
He said how do you like the breasts because I think they are not bad, maybe they are too small for your liking though - question mark. I said well to be honest I haven't looked at them yet but I am just looking forward to the augmentation a year after the radiotherapie has finished. He was shocked and said that I should be looking at them now. I explained that I didn't want to because although I respected his work, it was my body and I didn't want to look at it. He immediately sprung into action and said ok , let me show you the photos, I said nononononono then he changed tack and said why don't I show you some pictures of someone else who had the same thing and you tell me what you think? At this point I was lying down waiting for the compresses so he kinda put his phone in my face and said well what do you think?
He's not a smart as he thought because my distinctive Baccarat necklace was on the body in the picture so unless someone had stolen my necklace, it was obviously me. I just said yes well it's me. He said 'and?' I just shrugged my shoulders. He said again that I really ought to look myself.
I'm not sure how I feel about his approach. I sort of expected some kind of pressure from him and if I hadn't been wearing my necklace his trick might have worked and I would have said something polite about 'someone elses' breasts. But I also think he should have respected my wishes and not been so maladroit. Still, I didn't really look although I did see that the lower body just under the breasts looked smaller than I thought my body would look so maybe his trick worked (a bit) but I'm not looking myself.
I saw the psychologist in the afternoon, not the listening blonde but the unexpressive brunette - she works for our town in the psychology service which is free for residents. I've seen her a few times now.
It was a positive session because I really talked and cried and cried a lot afterwards. I did admit that not seeing my full body was the only thing I could control in a situation that, since August, I have had virtually no control over, so I was pretty miffed about the pressure today from the surgeon; she thought it was a bit out of order (well I gathered that by her frown and raised eyebrows which is the nearest she gets to emotion), but she did make the point that perhaps I was imagining worse things than the actual situation so if I looked I might be relieved. It was good to see her that day; I was very tense about the meeting the next day. I also explained that so many people are saying to me 'oh the radiotherapie, it's nothing, no problem, it's just lying there, you're not going to lose your hair'. She thought that, next to the chemo, for which there's very obvious side effects, the radiotherapie had hidden side effects and is also much less harsh than the chemo. It also means that the cancer has probably not spread so in itself, it's a therapy that means that my situation is considered less extreme than many others, so it is truly something to be grateful for. But in itself as a therapy, it is not nothing, nor easy, nor just lying there, it has it's own side effects and it's simply a much less intrusive therapy, but a therapy nontheless.
btw dh thinks that the surgeon is right and did the right thing encouraging me to look.
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