Bring It, Cancer. (Chemo Round 1, Pending Approval)

Bring It, Cancer. (Chemo Round 1, Pending Approval)

🌼 Date: Monday, December 8, 2025

⚡ Energy: Low and anxious

💔 Status: Alive, negotiating with my body

🌞 Outlook: Determined, but braced

Round 1: Bring It, Cancer

The Bad News: My Last 3 Weeks of Plastics

(And yes, we call it Plastics now — because Mean Girls walked so my boobs could run. And of course, on Wednesdays, we wear pink.)

So, here’s the deal:
My right-side incision has decided it does NOT want to behave.
The left side — the one with the bigger tumor — is healing like a damn honor student.
The right side — tiny tumor, barely a blip — is being a full-blown problem child.

Even my entire medical team is like, “Ummm… what?” So, here’s the deal:

Origami Boobs: The Saga

My plastic surgeon used the Bostwick technique, which basically takes my excess skin, deepithelializes it (Google it!), and folds it into a supportive sling — like a delicate little breast burrito — to hold the expander in place.

Why?
Because if you’ve ever laid on your back and felt your boobs migrate into your armpits, you’ll understand EXACTLY why we don’t want expanders or implants doing the same thing.

So now, thanks to all the intricate folding, we call them Origami Boobs.
It makes the whole thing feel a little more high art and a little less medical horror movie.

The Whole “Wound That Won’t Heal” Situation

Real, Raw, Unfiltered — Just Like I Promised

This is what a post-mastectomy anchor incision actually looks like.
No filters. No pretending it’s “not that bad.”
This is my right-side T-junction a few weeks ago, back when it was behaving. I’m sparing you the nasty, open wound, gaping hole picture of now because even I can’t really look at it. In this photo, the hole on the bottom was actually a little bigger than the 1 – 1/2 cm that it is now — the one holding up the show right now and keeping my skin from healing the way it should.
If you’re here because you’re facing this surgery too, I want you to know exactly what it looks like, so you never feel blindsided like I did.

Right now, at the T-junction of my scar, the top layer of skin has basically said,
“Nope. Not today. Not healing. Try again later.”

Which means:
No fills. For three straight weeks.
I’m still sitting at 150cc — the official size of a Capri Sun pouch — and it’s not moving anytime soon.

Why?
Because any added pressure on that wound risks splitting the delicate origami flap underneath… which would mean another surgery.
And since chemo wrecks your immune system faster than a toddler with a Sharpie, healing will already be slow.

So, no fills until this diva wound decides to get its act together.

The Photo Shoot Nobody Wants

At yesterday’s plastics appointment, the nurse had to take a photo of my boob with a ruler next to it — literally measuring the hole — and send it to my oncologist with a “Heyyyyy, sooo… is chemo still happening tomorrow?” note.

Crunch time.

Chemo was supposed to be this morning.
Plastics was last night at 4:30pm.
We had planned all the appointments for the next 3 months carefully around my expected blood count cycles.
My whole damn treatment timeline depended on that wound getting a green light.

And here I was with a gaping T-junction hole and zero fills allowed.

Cue the Anxiety Parade

Normally, I take an anxiety pill before Plastics, mostly because looking at my own disfigured body is still incredibly hard.
(At my first appointment I sobbed like a newborn the minute the nurse removed all the bandaging — big ugly cry.)

I refused to look at myself for almost three weeks.

And Then… the Oncologist Called

We were driving home in that heavy emotional fog when my phone rang through the car speakers.
It was my oncologist — the angel of decision-making, the queen of “are we still doing chemo or not?”

She’d reviewed the photo.
The wound looked like a bit over 1 cm.
Her worry? Infection.

My worry? EVERYTHING.

So, we negotiated.
Terrorist vs. hostage-level negotiations.

I agreed to:
✔ seal the magic bandage (silver, foamy, bougie, very fancy) on all four sides
✔ keep a photo log (sorry Casey, that’s now your new part-time job)
✔ call at the first sign of redness, swelling, or fever
✔ not cheat, push, or overdo it

And in return…
CHEMO WAS STILL ON.

💗 Tina –
One Badass Day at a Time