Congrats on finally getting your top surgery, hon! I wish you as smooth and quick a recovery as possible š
Thank you!! Iām officially three weeks post-op and so far everything has been healing well! Iām feeling really good overall and really excited about continuing to heal over the next couple months. and the weather is gonna get warmer in tandem and Iām gonna be able to wear t-shirts (!!!) and I am genuinely just so excited about this being My New Existence
right now Iām in that in-between phase where I feel pretty recovered (no pain, not tired, etc), but I still have restrictions on my arm movements until the end of the month, and I still have to wear a compression vest 24/7 so Iām not completely free of That Familiar Binder Feeling yet. Mostly Iām just impatient to get through this stage, so I can go back to carrying things and lifting my arms above my head! (though Iāll be through this phase before I know it! The first week post-op when I couldnāt do Basically Anything seemed slow when it was happening, but now it already seems like The Distant Past. Iām honestly so impressed with how much noticeable improvement there is week to week. itās genuinely impressive)Ā
tbh, I feel very at home with everything. Just like, really settled and peaceful. Visually Iām still at the phase where thereās still some swelling and the incisions havenāt scarred yet andārather comicallyāI still have all these purple lines drawn on my chest in surgical pen (oh the perils of not being able to scrub that area when I shower!), but when I look at my bare chest in the mirror Iām just like āyeah, thatās normal. thatās EXACTLY how thatās supposed to look.ā even with those silly surgical pen lines, it looks way more Correct than it did before. itās a really peaceful feeling.Ā
(and of course thereās still a long way to go before itās like ~glorious new photographable chest. but also, thatās fine! thatās the process! Iāve been thinking a lot about howāfor totally understandable reasons, given we live in a society thatās constantly trying to discourage any kind of transitionāthereās this instinct to package our transitions as these really neat and tidy Before and After, no intermediary stage, because itās more palatable to the general culture. but like, yeah my nipples are still kinda ~oogie, but theyāre RIGHT! theyāre healing and theyāre doing what theyāre supposed to do, and Iām being who Iām supposed to be. thereās even a kind of relish in the parts of the healing process that arenāt fun or photogenic, like changing the dressings on my grafts every day. sure itās an odd process, like the hatching of fleshy little baby birds. but Iām proud of it all, because itās evidence of one of the Best Damn Decisions I let myself make. anyway, thatās a whole Cultural Analysis that I could write but I wonāt. but healing is a process and it can be weird AND joyous, and joyously weird and weirdly joyous. and Iām just, chillin in that space right now!)Ā
so yes! my tl;dr is a sense of rightness. this was a loooong time comin, but itās been worth every single second. and Iām so excited for every single second Yet To Come, because I feel like I am exactly where Iām supposed to be. it's like coming home. it may be new, but itās also so, so familiar.Ā