As much anxiety as I felt about the prospect of surgery and the pain I associated with it. Having gone through it, it’s amazing how fuzzy my memories are from that time.

I’m sure that the combination of heavy narcotics plus being emotionally and mentally tapped out from chemo has a lot to do with the lack of clarity. It makes me think of those memories you have from childhood that you have but you’re never quite sure if they’re real or something you’re kiddie brain made up.

To sum up the particulars of what makes surgery suck: pain, numbness, drains and weird-looking boobs. Plenty of women mention how much drains suck and they are not wrong. It’s weird to have them hanging out of your body plus you get the joy of cleaning those suckers out.

The other thing other women have mentioned is the numbness you’ll feel. It’s different for everyone but in addition to being numb in the chest region, I was also numb in my armpits and the backs of my arms (triceps area).

I figured going into surgery that as good as plastic surgery can be, it’s not going to be as good as the real thing. I also didn’t anticipate how long shit takes to get back to looking somewhat normal. I did have the added surprise of the girls not being even since my surgeon thought I’d be getting radiation.

After waiting a couple of weeks for my pathology, the good news is that I don’t need to have radiation since I had a pathologic complete response (pCR) to the chemo. This means that the there was no evidence of residual disease which is freaking awesome. The chemo as brutal as it was, did the trick.

Of course, there’s the bad news, with uneven boobs, it means I’ll definitely have to have another surgery.

Yup, sonofabitch….put one in the win column and it has to be followed up with putting one in the what the fack column. Although the prospect of another surgery is daunting, I do feel a sense of relief that chemo did as good a job as it did. It doesn’t take away the paranoia that maybe some rogue cell was missed.

But, I let myself think about it a little and then move on. Otherwise, I’d spend all my time freaking the hell out. Besides, I still got 10 more Herceptin treatments to go. I also have to get back to not moving my arms like a puppet.