I look for other flat chested women. A rant.
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One type of physical therapy is called "myofascial release" and it helps with contracted and scarred tissue. It is not the most pleasant, but it is also not torture. Some massage therapists can also do this, and that might be important to find early so the PT can actually work with the MT to get a long-term plan in place because most insurance plans only allow a certain number of treatements, and even then there is a limit on time (6-8 weeks usually) and then they won't approve any more for the same problem. And you can't get back in for many months for the same problem either - my PT explained that their job is to help with the acute phase, get you a program of self-care in place, and then never do any follow-up because insurance won't allow it, unlike when you see your doctor and get a follow-up in a month or two to make sure you are on track for recovery. Sorry about the ramble - I am tired, in pain, drowsy from pain pills.... But it is a bright sunny day and I got my 2-mile walk in!
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Frapp, what she would probably do is promote someone else to my old job of senior real estate clerk, which she kinda sorta did last March, then hire a new junior. Last year in March just after another employee left due to her abuse, for another job, I came in one day and she had removed all of my files from my desk and gave them to someone else. She then went on vacation and although she was emailing everyone regularly, she refused to tell me what was going on. A week after she returned from vacation she acted like I was the crazy one for not remembering that a year or so before we had talked about training me to 'help' with Wills and Estates. Although I have done some training in Will preparation, it has never been explained to me what my responsibilities are. I have no new job title and have been living in limbo ever since. She has kept me around because there are things I know how to do that no one else does. She is also gradually refusing to accept new work that only I would know how to do. If I go into the office tomorrow and she refuses to speak with me, I will have to find a lawyer. I probably should have done that long ago, but I had just come back from my first mastectomy in last December; was trying to hold the department together after the one co-worker left; had a sister who worked with me at the office terminated last June (she has liver disease and was still unwell after the maximum sick leave allowed and had to accept termination in order to get social assistance - I believe she will die of cancer this year); then was getting ready for this November's mastectomy, and somewhere in there had steroid injections in my spine to stop the muscle spasms, and had vertigo for an entire month. Yes life has pretty much been shit for the last two years. It's actually amazing the men in the white jackets haven't come to take me away yet. Only my faith in God has sustained me, otherwise I probably would have jumped off a bridge by now.
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Thanks Lily and Linda - I've run in to that issue with PT - it's really ridiculous!
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LindaKR, my PT has been really great, and she explained all this to me on my last visit. She was going to release me in December, but I was so paranoid about doing well on my own for a while then getting worse (which is what happened over the summer), and I also knew I have another lump that probably has to be taken care of, which will then put me right back where I was and no way to get releif for another 6 months, so she has me coming in for one more visit in January. Not sure what I will do after that if I have to have more surgery because the MT is really good, but only after the acute stuff has been settled down. Occupational therapy is in the same situation as PT. There seems to be a lot of things that would be cost-effective, but the folks who decide what will be paid for or not have little insight into preventing problems will cost them less in the long run.... OK, don't get me started on one of my soap boxes....
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Djustme, your whole works situation really sucks! I am sorry you are having to go though all that in addition to all the bc stuff. Is your boss the owner? Is there anyone else in upper management that can help you? Is there a different department you can go to, away from this crazy lady?
I really can sympathize with crappy work situations. The thing that happened to your sister also happened to me. I was on medical leave and my leave expired before the dr would release me to go back to work. The company "separated" me. And I worked at a HOSPITAL of all places! When I did go back to work (at a different place) last January that company lost their contract in April. I transitioned over to the new comapny that took over the contract in May and that company eliminated my position in all their locations all over the state the week of Thanksgiving. 3 weeks ago I started a new job, but I do not like it
I really dread having to get up and go there.I do hope that you are able to come up with some kind of solution to your current situation. You do not need that kind of stress.
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nepenthes,
My husband had a very difficult time becoming intimate, recently, within the last 3 months. While I was going through treatment, neither of us were feeling sexually intimate. During treatment, we stayed close to one another, present to physical needs like hugging, but no sex. I completed active treatment in late August 2011. Afterward, my man had a very hard time wrapping his head around my appearance. For quite a few months, he saw me in a medical, surgical light, my scars reminded him of the trauma of treatment. This last year, we worked on shifting this thought process, after all, the cancer and its treatment are only one facet in many that makes us individuals.
It sounds like you may need to work on your heart connection together and encourage him to be verbal with his needs. I find that if we say it like it is, no hiding, it gets easier to deal with.
I miss my breasts and so does my husband. There is an aspect of mourning that needs to be explored and acknowledged. This is a huge change. And for as much as it physically happened to us, it has really happened to both us and our mates and husbands. I am sorry your man is not handling this well. I understand the hurt.
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Ballet dancers! They are often as flat as we are, I realized. OK, they do have nipples, but otherwise:
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Momine, I just wish I could get the rest of my body into those beautiful positions! I am flat, but stiff as a board!
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I second you Linda! Plus, my belly has not been that flat since, well, let's just leave it at since...
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Momine - Love the ballerina pic!
LizzieLou - I've been enjoying using the phrase "Living Racklessly" since your post. lol
Here's the url to a youtube video (don't know how to embed link, sorry) by a woman who chose bilateral mastectomy over her doctor's recommendation of lumpectomy, with no recon, and no prosthetics. She covers many issues in 15 minutes, including clothing choices. She's adorable!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuxnXMFLRf4
Ellen
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Ellen, thanks for the video. I love that lady.
Thanks to my lovely da vinci surgeon, my belly is now flat again because he removed all the weird adhesions I had from my kid's c-section birth.
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I too have chosen to mostly just be flat. I have bra and prosthesis but find them a bother and a pain. I don't miss my rather saggy boobs at all. Just wish I could get rid of my flabby tubby too. I asked by surgeon why he didn't go do some lyposuction at same time! I like no bra and throwing on any shirt I want.
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Morning to all: leaving for Las Vegas this am, land of short skirts and exposed bosoms! I'm flat and living racklessly also. I have made it through cruise flat already also. But seriously, who looks at a 60 year old chest! Beatmon
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Living racklessly! I love it!!!
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Ellen,
Thanks for posting the link to that wonderful video. She is adorable and has very clever clothing ideas. Like her, I never have been a person who likes patterned clothing, but I can see that patterns really work well if you're trying to draw attention away from flatness. Also, I like her comment that tops that have some kind of a line (like empire tops) actually emphasize flatness less than those that are just plain. It's counter-intuitive but I think she's right. I like to wear solid-color fitted tee shirts. When I go flat it is extremely obvious. Maybe a wardrobe change is in order!
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Most of the tops that I have bought since my BMX have been tops with yokes or gathers around the neckline because they do flow over the body. I figured this out by watching my young granddaughters - told them I wish they made tops like that for older ladies and then found that they do, and they work well.
I still like my tee shirts too though and wear them - just throw a scarf on over them and I'm good to go. As Donna mentions in her video if their is something in the space nobody notices what is missing. That something can be a few gathers, a scarf or vest or simply a pattern.
Edited to add: Ellen, I loved the video thanks for posting it.
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Here are two more videos that I really liked from the account that Ellen posted a link to before. I love this woman. Edited to add: By the way she links to Erica's site http://breastfree.org/ in the description of the first video here.
Living breastless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxb0YAqR6no&list=PL03CC30AD05C0B039&index=16Breast cancer and femininity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bRcl0C_icI&list=UU-gvocTD7IBcrv5qy_QltPw&index=330 -
MT1 - I went to a breast cancer support group for the first time last night - and guess what - when I mentioned that I intended to live flat, one of the women actually saw you on that swim video that you posted when you first started this thread. It was like - hey - I know who you are talking about! It's a small world, and you are evidently an inspiration to many unknown women who have breast cancer. So be proud of yourself!!!
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Hey gang,
Something happened today that really bothers me. You know how you go to a doctors and if a male doctor has to see your breasts, they get a female to be in the room? Well, I don't have any breasts! Why am I treated like I still do have breasts? There is nothing sexual about my chest at all, it's a TRUNK at best! Come on, medical people, a trunk with two scars is nothing to get excited over.
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nibbanna, my first onc and my breast surgeon (both males) never had a nurse come into the room during an exam, both pre and post bmx. My second onc is female, in the same practice as my first one, never has a nurse come into the room either. When I see her, we talk for a while, then I take off my shirt so she can examine my chest. I think the use of gowns is sort of silly, so they don't offer me one.
When I had an ekg, pre-bmx, the tech was a male. I did have a gown, but he placed the leads on my chest, which involved opening it up. There was no one else in the room. I didn't think anything about it.
Different doctors have different routines. I suspect the doctor you saw today was operating on automatic pilot, so to speak and called in the nurse because he normally does when examining a female patient.0 -
No one accompanies the resident or my onc either. I suspect some doctors just do that as a policy.
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I felt like the freak show yesterday at a routine cardiology appt. To follow a heart condition I had previous to TNBC. I am 3 months out chemotherapy so I have very little hair. These folk know what I have done the past 8 months. I saw a P.A. I never saw before and she did the whole extensive listen to the murmur routine and then the doctor did his thing. I felt like I was the show and tell freak for the day. It was unpleasant to me. There WAS good news though, the chemotherapy did not damage the heart muscle.
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Nibbana, it sounds like you're saying that without our boobs, we are no longer the women we were before, and don't need to be treated like we were before. Sheesh! If it's my doctor's policy to have a female attendant in the room when he examines a female patient, I wouldn't want him to make an exception for me just because I have no boobs. Besides, if an unethical doctor wanted to take advantage of me, my flat chest would not magically stop him.
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Nibbana ~ If that is their office policy, then he had to do so. I also see this as he gave you the respect he would give any female patient who came in to the office and he did not see you as less of a woman because you don't have boobs. JMHO.
I think it also depends on how a woman sees herself. When I choose it to be, my body is sexual; when I choose or don't feel sexual, it's not. It has nothing to do with my boobs or lack thereof.0 -
I recently had outpatient GYN surgery. It was decided that I needed an EKG because of my age. An EKG tech(that I know) came in to do it. The leads were placed with me being minimally exposed, I don't think the tech noticed.
The gowns do seem silly. It does speed things up for the doctor, tho
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The gown I think is ridiculous is the one you wear for a mammo. Is it more modest to only have one exposed at a time? All the techs and nurses are female.
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Wren ~ I never understood those either, but I guess it makes some feel comfortable.
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I don't know if a gown speeds things up for my onc or not. I am never given a gown before entering the exam room (unlike when I go to my pcp for a physical). If I were to wear a gown for an exam, the onc has to step out of the room while I change.
My breast surgeon's routine was similar - I'd talk to him while clothed. He'd hand me a gown and step out of the room. Finally I told him it was silly - he didn't argue.
Edited to add, I prefer talking to my doctors when I am dressed although I don't feel the need for a gown during an exam.0 -
Too funny about the gowns. In my entire BC treatment, they only gave me a gown pre-surgery. All the rest, you just strip and that is that: exams, X-rays, rads etc.
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They give me a gown, but I'm stripped down before they get it out of the closet.
My DH has always said modesty has never been an issue for me, but then I grew up in the 60's in a family of 7 kids, two adults, three bedrooms, and one bathroom.0
