and despite my positive attitude throughout my last few posts, I’m feeling pretty downtrodden right now.

On Sunday night my drains seemed to be going down and one of them even broke. I went to UCLA Medical Center to see my plastic surgeon, Dr. Festekjian, yesterday at 11 am in the hopes that he would remove my drains.

Incase you're wondering, here's a nice little pic of Dr. Festekjian. Click on it to read more about him!

Not only did he say he wouldn’t remove them yet, the way he fixed my broken drain makes me feel like even more of a mutant! It’s nothing major but the reason it broke in the first place is because the drain tube wasn’t pliable enough at the bottom, causing the top of the bulb to snap off. He had to add extra lengths of a more pliable tube, so now the drain tube is even longer and more awkward and harder to hide. MEH.

He did check on my “foobs” (fake boobs) to see how they were doing. The tissue expanders looked good, but he said my left nipple looks questionable. He is concerned with the amount of blood flow going to it and wants me to keep checking on its progress. I’m supposed to take pictures of it daily to see if it changes for the better or worse.

I’m pretty upset about this. I opted to have a nipple-sparing mastectomy because I didn’t have cancer and didn’t have to worry about getting rid of “everything.” I thought, hey, this won’t be so bad–I’ll still have my nipples, everything will still look like ME except it will have new stuffing. Now I’m running the risk of something actually happening to my nipple. What if it dies? What if he has to remove it and I have to get a fake nipple tattooed on? Nothing on my left side will be me anymore at that point.

I’ve never given much thought to nipples until now. I’m sorry if this seems too graphic or vulgar for anyone, but it’s the reality of the entire situation. Women who have these kind of surgeries–preventative or not–have to worry about this sort of thing. I’m just very angry right now that my “brave” and “smart” decision to have a prophylactic mastectomy is now giving me this anxiety over my aesthetics and what is rightfully “mine.”

The other day I stumbled upon a blog called Wearing my BRCA genes. It’s written by a young woman who, like me, found out very young that she had a BRCA mutation. Unfortunately she was also diagnosed with breast cancer. =( Her blog is really great. One of my favorite posts contains a poem she wrote called “Healthy Skin.” When I first read it, I just thought it was beautiful. Now I think it applies to me and I want to share it with you all. Maybe you can understand how I’m feeling about my stupid nipple.

“Healthy Skin”

By Cara, from Wearing my BRCA genes

The color of healthy
skin is pink. Peach if
you’re a Caucasian coloring
with crayons.
In shadows black skin
emerges, but the best
we can hope for is pink
underneath. Blood,
oozing, is a good sign,
scary as it is.

Cream is slathered
on the skin, like icing
on a cake, the surgeon said.
Covering up the black
and ushering in the pink,
the blood, the blisters
that pop and reveal soft
pink, underneath.

I hope for pink, because
it is the color of healthy
skin.

“In shadows black skin emerges.” Go away, black skin! Leave my nipple alone!

I think I need to start writing my own poetry about this. I like poetry.