I finally figured out how to get this picture from facebook onto here. I got my first tattoo at age 51!! I got it last September, on the 6 month anniversary of my surgery. I didn't do that on purpose..I didn't even realize it was my 6 month anniversary until I was filling out the paperwork and then realized it was 9/22. Perfect day to do it!

I loooove my tattoo!!!! I never thought I'd get one, ever!!! I had been thinking about getting one for a couple years and was going to get one to represent how I feel about FL. When we had to move back to Michigan I was soooo depressed for a long time and was trying to think of something to get. Then I got diagnosed with breast cancer and it shifted my thoughts to a different kind of tattoo. Matt kept telling me to get a pink ribbon on my new boob lol, but I didn't want that. Then I read an interview with Kelly Clarkson and she has this on her rib cage only without the pink ribbon as the Y. I had seen a billboard about dense breasts and the danger they are to women and they used the ribbon as the Y and I loved it. I had heard that a lot of breast cancer survivors were using Kelly's song, Stronger, as their anthem so I looked it up on youtube and watched the video. I LOVED IT!! That's when I decided to get this tattoo. The bracelet is from my sister friend, Tracy, a birthday gift.


Marge

New Life

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately. Women who when I was getting my surgery, they were just finding out they were BRCA positive, or they were trying to decide what to do. Now a few of them have had their surgeries and are having a hard time. One isn't healing as fast as she wants to, infections, etc and very discouraged. I say to her, hang in there!!! Things get better and life goes back to normal. Don't regret doing this for yourself, your family, because very soon you will be all healed and living life again and you will be thankful to not have to worry about breast cancer.

All the decisions we have to make before surgery is tough. I'm thankful to be past all of that. I can't wait to read when they are past it all and feeling normal again. It takes time. I think I healed extraordinarily fast and well. I really didn't have too many problems and some of the problems I did have resolved themselves pretty much on their own over time. Matt and I remembered about the torture strap the other day. We both had forgotten about that horrible strap I had to wear for a few weeks because my implants were too high. Looking back, I don't think it did much for me. Same with the lipo I had done under my arms. I felt like my breasts were in my arms way back then but I think what it was, was they were still swelled up and they are high now. My old breasts suffered from being too huge and gravity had left lol. So I didn't feel them next to my arms. It just took some time to get used to. When my plastic surgeon discussed lipo with me when I complained, I thought he was going to do it on the sides of my breasts. I was surprised to come out of surgery and find out it was under my arms. Just takes time to adjust to this new life. Now that a year has passed since diagnosis and 9 1/2 months since surgery, things are all back to normal and I'm ready for a new phase in my life.


P.S. I'm going to try to post a picture of what I did for myself after surgery.