The Chin Shelf Situation

The Chin Shelf Situation

🌼 Date: Saturday, May 9, 2026

⚡ Energy: Suspicious swelling and side-eye

❤️ Status: Monitoring the newest alien invasion

🤨 Outlook: Hoping this boob calms down before it applies for permanent residency under my chin

Apparently, my body has decided that we were getting a little too comfortable.

Because today, I think I have a new “radiation reaction” symptom rearing its ugly little head.

And by little, I mean swollen.

Sore.

Rock hard.

And suspicious.

I had finally made friends with the alien trying to claw its way out of the middle of my chest.

You know the one.

The hard, pokey parts of the expander bags that look like they are about to pop through the surface of my skin at any second and introduce themselves to the room.

That alien and I had reached an agreement.

I don’t like it.

It doesn’t care.

We coexist.

But today?

Today there is a new alien.

Because now my left boob is swollen and super sore.

And this is not the same center-of-the-chest situation I’ve been dealing with. This is different. This is an entirely new production.

New location.

New texture.

New attitude.

New “What the hell are we doing now?” energy.

Today my boob is back to being rock hard, which it has not been since my last physical therapy session when she did deep tissue massage around the lymph nodes in my armpit.

That session loosened things up, helped some of the tightness, and made my body feel like maybe it had briefly remembered how to be a body instead of a haunted medical storage unit.

But today?

Nope.

Back to rock hard.

And then there is the area above my boob, on my chest, right at the very top part of the expander bag.

It almost feels like I can feel a tab or edge or something from the bag sticking out through my skin.

Not actually through the skin.

Let’s be clear.

Nothing has popped out and waved at me.

Yet.

But it feels close enough that my brain is now on official monitoring duty.

Which is super relaxing.

Love that for me.

The doctor did say I could still have radiation reactions for a few weeks after treatment ended, and swelling was on the list.

So technically, this could fall under the category of “normal but annoying.”

Cancer treatment has many delightful categories:

Normal but annoying.

Gross but expected.

Painful but not alarming.

Alarming but probably fine.

Call us if it gets worse.

Send us a picture next week.

Drink water.

Rest.

Wait 4–6 weeks.

You know.

The classics.

This swelling feels like it is coming from the chest wall, which makes sense since they targeted that area from both the front and the back during radiation.

It feels like the swelling is pushing the expander bag upward toward the surface of my skin.

And I am not a fan.

I remember at my very first appointment with the plastic surgeon back in September, I told her I did not want my new boobs to sit so high up that I could rest my chin on them.

Because listen.

I am all for perkiness.

But I do not need built-in chin support.

I am 55, not a decorative shelf.

And yet here we are.

The swelling above my boob is so bad that it is getting dangerously close to ledge territory.

If this keeps up, I may have to start calling it my emotional support chin shelf.

Luckily, these are just the temporary skin-stretching bags and not the permanent implants.

Because if these were the finished product, we would have a problem.

A big one.

Possibly a structural engineering problem.

The expander bags have one job: stretch the skin and make room for the real reconstruction later.

They are not meant to be beautiful.

They are not meant to feel natural.

They are not meant to behave.

They are basically the construction cones of breast reconstruction.

Necessary.

Awkward.

Unattractive.

Always in the way.

And somehow still capable of injuring you emotionally.

I do remember my plastic surgeon telling me that after reconstruction surgery, the implants will sit a little higher at first.

Then, as healing progresses and the swelling from surgery goes down, everything should calm down and settle into place.

Apparently implants can take up to six months to fully “settle.”

Six months.

Because of course.

Nothing in this journey can just be normal and quick.

Everything has to involve phases, healing windows, swelling timelines, and the patience of a saint, which I do not have.

This is also why they do not do nipple reconstruction at the same time as the implant surgery.

Because if they did the nipples before everything settled into place, they could end up completely out of position later.

And honestly, that is not a surprise I need.

I have already had enough body plot twists.

I do not need my future nipples playing pin the tail on the donkey.

So maybe today I am just getting a little preview of what post-reconstruction swelling might feel like.

A tiny sneak peek.

A coming attraction.

A “coming soon to a chest near you” situation.

Except right now it is only on the left side, because apparently my one remaining boob wanted to practice being dramatic all by herself.

And she is nailing it.

One boob.

One chin shelf.

One new alien trying to bust its way out.

One woman standing in front of the mirror thinking, Really? This is what we’re doing today?

The weirdest part about all of this is how quickly something can become your new normal.

A few months ago, if I felt something hard and pokey under my skin, I would have been fully alarmed.

Now I’m over here like, “Okay, which alien are we dealing with today? The chest alien or the upper-boob ledge alien?”

That is not normal.

And yet, somehow, it is my normal.

Cancer treatment turns you into a weird little body detective.

You notice everything.

You poke.

You compare.

You stare in the mirror at angles no human should ever have to use.

You ask yourself questions like:

Was this here yesterday?

Is this more swollen?

Is this redder?

Is this radiation?

Is this infection?

Is this healing?

Is this bad?

Is this normal?

Should I call?

Should I send a picture?

Should I wait?

Should I panic?

Should I stop poking it?

The answer to that last one is always yes.

And yet.

Here we are.

The truth is, I am trying really hard not to spiral.

The doctor warned me that radiation reactions can keep showing up after treatment ends.

Swelling was on the list.

Tenderness was on the list.

Skin weirdness was basically the whole damn list.

So I am reminding myself that this may just be part of the healing process.

An annoying, sore, rock-hard, ledge-forming part of the healing process.

But still.

Healing.

I will keep watching it.

I will keep listening to my body.

I will call if it gets worse, because apparently I am now a person who emails doctors and uses MyChart like a responsible adult.

Disgusting growth, honestly.

But for today, I am documenting the newest episode of What Fresh Hell Is This, Breast Cancer Edition and trying to laugh at the absurdity of it.

Because if I don’t laugh, I will absolutely start Googling, and we all know that road leads straight to Anxiety Land with no snacks and terrible lighting.

So instead, I am naming the situation.

The chin shelf.

The upper-boob alien.

The expander bag rebellion.

The left boob construction zone.

Whatever we call it, it is here.

It is sore.

It is suspicious.

And it is being watched.

I asked for future boobs that would not sit high enough to rest my chin on.

Today, apparently, my body decided to show me what the alternate timeline could look like.

Just on one side.

Because symmetry is apparently too much to ask from this circus.

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One Badass Day at a Time