About
3 weeks later, Debbie underwent the first of three expansions. Prior to
undergoing surgery, she talked with her surgeon about what size her
reconstructed breasts should be. At each expansion appointment, the
surgeon injected an appropriate amount of saline into the expanders
through a needle. At this first expansion, 100cc's were injected into
each breast. Adding more saline helps stretch the skin and prepare it
to receive permanent saline implants in a few months.
Debbie was lying down for this procedure, and the chest area was numb to her and had been since her double mastectomy surgery. She sometimes experienced mild soreness at the point of needle insertion after returning home - which she was able to do immediately following the expansion. Discomfort, in the form of pressure and some back pain from the skin stretching, was also common, but massage while sitting up helped alleviate this.
Debbi's
expansion sessions took only 15 minutes. But she maintained an
important skin regimen in between sessions that she believes helped
vanish her scars more completely and have better reconstruction results.
Her surgeon recommended applying cocoa butter each night to her chest to help soften the skin for stretching, a process she began after her drains from double mastectomy surgery came out, and one she continued throughout the expansion process until the permanent implants were inserted. She also applied white medical tape to both her port scar and the scars from her tissue expansion surgery each morning and removed them each night, to speed their healing. She left the central scars from her mastectomy alone; she would be having more work done in this area during nipple reconstruction.
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