The mastectomy happened. This episode is about what that was actually like. The double mastectomy with PAP flap reconstruction, seven hours in theatre, and what I remember from coming around on the other side. Some of it is sharp and painful. Some of it is genuinely strange. At one point I played hangman with the nurses while on fentanyl. Recovery started in those first fragmented hours and didn't get easier quickly.
The days after surgery blurred together. Constant monitoring, broken sleep, pain that didn't let up, and drains coming out of my body until they didn't. Getting upright was a project. Looking in the mirror took a specific kind of courage I had to find each time. And watching the people around me carry the weight of it all brought its own particular kind of grief.
There's also something in this episode about what happens when you stop fighting what's already happening. Not giving in, but releasing the resistance. It didn't make the recovery painless. But it made it more bearable. This one is honest about the parts of surgical recovery that don't usually get talked about.
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