I had expanders put in during my double mastectomy surgery. For quite a while after the surgery, I felt like I had a bad headache across the front of my chest all the time—I finally realized it wasn't my incisions that hurt, but the expanders. I was prescribed pain meds, muscle relaxers and Valium (for the muscle tightness) and TOOK them. As the months went on, I was always "aware" of the expanders; they felt as though they had been riveted on and I often felt pinching and poking sensations. I described the feeling of the tissue expanders to my friends as like wearing a hard plastic bra under my skin (I also texted them a picture of Brunhilde wearing those two conical metal disks over her breasts). Fills were easy, but I sometimes felt a bit achy later in the day after the fills were done.

My initial surgery was at the end of October 2014; I had to keep the expanders in until my 16 chemo treatments that began early January ended May 20 (my oncologist didn't want to delay my cancer treatment any longer than it took to heal from the double mastectomy). As it turned out, due to scheduling issues with another co-worker on my team, I had the expanders in for more than a year as I could not have the surgery to take them out and implants put in until early November.

Drains are a pain in the .... I pinned my drains to a lanyard around my neck.

I was not a candidate for nipple sparing. Silicone implants were used for reconstruction and I only wanted around a C cup. I still haven't bothered having new "nipples" made, nor tattoos. My incisions are "smiles" under each breast with a straight cut down from where the breast should project (where the nipple would be). I've had to have numerous revisions (capsular contraction from a bleed somewhere behind the left implant, the left implant turned over, the Alcon implants were implicated in a type of rare cancer and replacement was a good idea, the left side would droop, etc.).

I am happier with the right than the left (I had a lumpectomy and radiation on the left side 14 years before needing the double mastectomy for a new cancer and revisions don't work as well on this side), but I look all right in clothes—naked is another story; these would never pass as "real."