Changes

Change is the only constant. -  Heraclitus

When I opted for the surgery, I thought all I'd lose is the breast.  Well, it isn't quite as simple.  You lose a little bit of yourself each time something like this happened.  And I meant that both literally and figuratively.

With that pound of flesh removed, I must weigh a little less.  I'm no taller.  An area of concern is the back. Now if your pound of flesh is substantial, its loss may cause an overall imbalance.  This put a strain on your spine.  In order to correct this imbalance, women with massive pounds of flesh may consider getting a prosthesis.

Then, there's lymphedema but I have written briefly about that in a previous post.

My blood pressure is another mystery.  Where it once rode on the high side (averaging 145/60 with medication) it now swayed demurely between 100-130 over 40-60. (without medication)  According to the good Professor, a patient's blood pressure is known to dip after surgery.  This explains why I was constantly feeling cold.

My sister-in-law had a special herbal recipe to help increase one's blood level:

Lean meat, preferably organic 4 black dates 4 Southern dates 10 red dates wolfberries

Method To be double-boiled 5 hours. The resulting soup is incredibly sweet. My palms were pale before. It is a shy pink now.

The iron pills made my throat sore, for one reason or another but my sister-in-law had a remedy for that too:

2 red apples 2 pears 3/4 pcs Moh Far Kor pinch of Lam Hang Pak Hang pinch of sar sam

Method Bring to the boil then simmer for an hour.   I noticed that this soup reduced my phlegm significantly. It is also believed to reduce internal heat.

When I was in my early twenties, my mother had a stroke.  She was bedridden for about four months and developed severe bed sores.  None of us knew anything about bed sores at the time till it turned really bad. Having seen what she went through, I acquired a habit of always sleeping on my side.

This now became a problem.  My wound is healing fast but the underlying tissues are still raw.  When I turn on my side, I could feel this load of flesh moving in sync.  Sleep is impossible until this load is at rest. When I turned to the other side (my ears hurt if I sleep on one side for too long) the entire ritual is repeated.

Some nerves were severed during the procedure.  So my underarm and left chest is in a constant state of numbness.  Not a great feeling.