Since it's breast cancer awareness month

I wanted to insert an image of the well known pink ribbon but I'll be darned if I can figure out how to do it! Lenny-Kelly helpppppppp.

UPDATE - ABOUT 6 HOURS LATER...I DID IT ARENT YOU PROUD OF ME! I LOVE THIS RIBBON, LOVE WHAT IT SAYS DAMN IT!

So anyway yesterday we completed yet another milestone on this journey. I had my last expander fill at Mayo. David had made the comment that I had just completed another milestone but nope David you have walked this journey with me every step of the way, it is our journey, WE completed another milestone.

I left the office yesterday and got a hug from the RN who has been doing my fills every week. We both became teary eyed for goodness sake! Crazy huh? But when you see some of these folks every week for months you get used to seeing them.

I now have 645 cc's of saline in each expander. Dinah (the RN who did the fills) said that my process went very well. I know that some are able to have a very little at a time put in (25 cc's) because folks it is uncomfortable! The expander is under the pec muscle and each time that they do a fill the muscle and skin are stretched. It feels like someone is sitting on your chest and your back at the same time or that you have done bench presses with way too much weight on the bar for way too long. But in the end it will all be worth it.

At the time of the expander placement surgery my plastic surgeon put 100cc's in the left one and 150 in the right. At my first fill Dinha put 150 and 200 in to make them even and bring them to 300 cc's. The next two visits I had 75 cc's put in and then went down to 50 cc's at each visit. I now have to wait 6 months to allow the expanders to do their job of stretching everything and make a good pocket for the implants. After 6 months they draw off 200 cc's (which will then be my 'real' size) and I wait another two months for the implant exchange. All of this is to lessen the risk of complications. One of the major complications is capsular contrature. This is when the membrane that forms around the implant tightens and squeezes the implant causing it to be mishapen or the skin to wrinkle. So, they overfill to create a much larger than needed pocket. I should also say that implants will not last for life. It is like a hip or knee replacement sort of, they too wear out. Implants typically last 10 years or so and then you may have to do the process over again! Crazy huh? Now they can also give you a nipple and tatto areolas. I have looked at pictures of the finished process and they really do look absolutly real. To make the nipple they sort of twist the skin forming a nipple and then stitching it to make it stay.

So to celebrate this leg of the journey I was going to go somewhere really fun and take a few pictures. The weather didnt cooperate as it became cloudy and there were storm warnings out (Kelly did you ever get your weather radio working...hahaha) so I took a few pics at home. My camera has been a bit of a lifesaver. The weekend that I was diagnosed we spent up north and I took loads of pictures. It relaxed me and kept my mind off of the cancer. My advice to anyone that receives a diagnosis like this is to find that 'thing' that will take your mind off of the not so good stuff, keep a positive attitude and take one step at a time. You know your glass can either be half empty or half full. Choose your attitude.

These are two of the pictures that I took yesterday














Above is Pixie, our good friend and neighbor's dog. She is the most photogenic dog ever, is always doing something that screams....take my picture. Here she is in our other neighbor's bird bath 'diving' for a rock! Those that know Pix know that she carries an attitude and is a free thinker. She does things on her terms and that is that! It does cause her (and her owner) some trouble but ya gotta love her.















This is a Mexican Sunflower that is just now blooming. A friend of mine (M&M) gave these to me a few months back. They are a great flower and as you can see the color is fabulous. It's fun to have this color this time of year in the flower garden.

Oh I have to share. In my vegetable garden this year I planted tomatoes, muskmellon and watermellon. As the season went on they vined all over the place (now I am not a gardener at all, have no clue what stuff is supposed to look like so keep that in mind when reading this!). And then they bloomed I had blooms all over the place and thought I was going to have one heck of a crop of one or the other. So I then had these big green and what I thought were watermellons growing all over. I picked one (with two of my neighbor's help...I am not alone in this know nothing gardening business...haha) and we cut it open hoping to get a nice juicy watermellon. My goodness the thing was hard to cut but cut it we did. And on the inside it sure didnt look like a watermellon. It had these big huge seeds and the 'meat' was sort of stringy. My one neighbor (that would be you Jessica) thought perhaps we had a squash-but I didnt plant squash so we're still thinking give them time and they will look like watermellons. The season goes on and now we can diffinitly see the watermellon and muskmellon and finally figure out that what we had cut were pumpkins. I didnt plant pumpkins for goodess sake where oh were did they come from. Jessica had thrown her last year's carved pumpkin in the garden area so what I had growing must be from that. I have about 12 very large pumpkins now in my pumpkin patch. How fun is that! Lenny, Kelly and two fo Kelly's friends came a week ago to go through the pumpkin patch for their Halloween pumpkins. Their friend's picked two and they picked one. Kel has dibs on another as soon as it ripens. And David and I picked one of the watermellon last night, it was really quite good. It is the only one that I did get. The muskmellon didnt fare so well but oh well it has been fun to watch...and to figure out!