Now What???

After my mastectomy I looked forward to the healing and pain free days. I feel like I'm becoming the biggest whiner, but danged if I don't have something else to cry about now.



Today is exactly two weeks since I had surgery. The major pain from surgery is gone, but now what I have is something that I don't know if I can properly describe. I don't feel like I have to go into detail to explain the pain I felt when I had my breasts removed. Everyone probably has a pretty good understanding that that hurt. One thing, though, they warned me all my nerves would be cut and I wouldn't have surface feeling anymore. I've had no feeling on my skin area at all - I mean dead numb - or it was. I am now developing a feeling in parts of that area that make me want to rip my skin off.

There are areas of skin on my chest that are hyper-sensitive. I want nothing touching, feeling, looking, existing near or thinking about that area. I can't find a shirt soft enough to wear. Everything that brushes up against my chest makes me want to jump through the roof. None of the kids' friends are allowed to come inside anymore cause Mommy refuses to wear a shirt most of the time. When I do have one on, I have it pulled away from my chest.

The other night I was sitting on the couch watching TV and sensed Jacob was staring. Finally, he asked why it was that I had my shirt pulled forward in front of me and I was looking down it. I explain that I wasn't really looking down it, I was blowing softly on my skin under my shirt. He asked if that made it feel better. I told him no. So, of course, he wanted to know why I was doing it. I thought long and hard and finally decided I would answer his question with a question - one that only his 7 year old mind would understand: I asked if his homework was done; surely he had better things to do than stand there bothering me with complicated questions.