October approaches

October is a spooky month.

Of course, there's Halloween. Ghosties and ghouls and witches and bats and all that. But they don't scare me.

It's also breast cancer awareness month. Pink ribbons make me quiver with remembered fear more than any bat ever could, but of course I politely thank people for their support of the cause because I DO want a cure and awareness is critical to finding that cure. Still, constant reminders of how 40,000 women will die of breast cancer in the US this year is, well, frightening. I continue to pray that I will not be one of these women.

It's also the anniversary of my giant breakdown last year. The corrective surgery that went wrong, surgeon's mistakes, and my utter inability to process one more thing. Dark, dark times.

And this year, it's surgery #10. I have known for months that October would be the date of my next surgery, and with Tessa in school I no longer had a chance to tell myself I was too busy to book the appointment. Today I called, and I was scheduled for October 23. I am assured that they will accept our new insurance as a preferred provider; I am assured that this will be an "easy" surgery. ("Tylenol Extra Strength if you're lucky. Of course, we'll send you home with "real" pain drugs, but maybe you won't need them!" I do not feel particularly "lucky" and I hope that my bad attitude does not cause me to have pain above and beyond what is required.)

Why am I doing this surgery?
- Replace expanders (rock hard awful deformed objects on my chest) with soft implants
- Line up my breasts so that they rest on the same horizontal plane (which they currently do not)
- Remove the heinous attempt at nipples that just created nasty scars
- Remove some of the weird deformed shapes (breast liposuction, if you can believe that)
- Remove the bump over my eye - it's a scar left over from the failed attempt to use my eyelid skin for areolas
- Drop two cup sizes

I am most excited about having smaller breasts. These are bigger than I wanted, and I hate them. If I have to hate them, I at least want them to be smaller so that they're not so noticeable. Plus, I want to run, and smaller breasts are better for that.

I am choosing not to pursue nipples, areolas, tattoos, or any other corrections after this. I am just so **** tired of all this surgery that it takes more strength than I have just to schedule the appointment. (I was "supposed" to schedule it in June. )

I'm lining up childcare and self care and I hope to get it over with asap. But now there is a date on the calendar: October 23, I get the knife. Again.