Snug

Inspirational song: Black Coffee in Bed (Squeeze)

Imagine what nurses go through. There I was, lying face-up in an armless dentist-style chair, while the nurse was picking out staples and stitches from my skin. She was working on ones in the crease under my breast, almost to my ribs, and struggling to attain the proper approach to it. She said it was a lot easier than when she has to pick stitches out from someone's butt cheeks, right next to more personal spaces, and I laughed and said out loud that it just never occurred to me how incredibly intimate her job must be. She said she had been a post-partum nurse, so she had really seen it all. I think I'll stick to real estate, thanks. No aspirations to change careers into surgical nursing.

All my stitches and staples are out, and the drain has been dumped in the toxic waste bin. She threw out the Ace bandages too. I'm now in a compression garment that is basically a 3/4 sleeve crop top. It functions like a bra, hooks and all down the front. I get to wear this for weeks. It puts pressure right where I needed it on the upper half of my arms, and I'm feeling much less bee-sting pain. 

So far I'm not showing any signs of lymphoedema in that right arm, which is very encouraging. That is the main reason I spent extra big bucks to have work done on the arms, and I feel like I made the right choice now. However, when the physical therapist does lymphatic drainage massage, ever so gently gliding her hands to move along the toxins built up in the arms, I always feel awful. That night I'm sore and I feel like I have a fever and maybe the flu. So imagine how I feel today, finally having proper compression to squeeze up the enormously swollen goo in the middle of those bruised arms. My body doesn't know how to process it all. I feel like crap.

I stayed home from Rotary to rest and be compressed. If I could have found the energy to go out, I could have met my little superstar at the park by her house. Apparently some kid left behind a football, so she had a good time playing with it. Her mommy knew what it would mean to me for her to practice her Heisman and QB poses, so she did. Ah, my heart.