Dear Tissue Expanders,   Tonight is our last night together.  I'm breaking up with you.   It's been real, these last three and a half months.  Really, real .  So real that you have been on my mind for every single waking moment, as well as countless non-waking ones.  Although our time has drawn to a close and you will be carelessly discarded in the morning for a pair of more demure implants, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how I feel:  it's not me, it's you.   I thought I knew what I was getting into, choosing to go the tissue-expanders-to-implants route.  I heard that there was pain and discomfort with each subsequent fill, but I had no idea that you would become such a constant, pervasive force.  You have dominated most of my thoracic sensory nerve activity since Valentine's day.  You are all I feel.  Even now, after all this time, you're still the dominant presence.  I still feel like I'm wrapped tightly, and I give you ...
Sharing my experience with mastectomy and reconstruction to encourage, empower, and uplift those who find themselves caught up in the whirlwind of the breast cancer experience.