Lillian's Posts

Lillian/.First off Heart Sister....Steven is sweetly correct(Bless your heart Steven/popeye) in that you are a beautiful woman and to let you know we have twin looking scars. Mine is raised up in between the breast(cleavage area) and is still sore. I happen to have been called for my mammogram just Friday and didn't want to make an appt. due to the soreness of this area. The rest of the incision(full sternotomy during surgery a month before yours!) By the way I love my scar as a sign of survival! I bought walking shoes at big 5 last night and the clerk was looking down my shirt as I was having difficulty angling myself to tie my shoes(really cool ones, orange, purple, gray, blue!) He said "Ouch, that looks like it hurts" and my husband told him I had OHS. By the way. Due to having 3 separate bad run-ins with viruses since Dec./ medication changes and insulin changes I went from losing weight to picking up 30 lbs too since surgery to which I am now going down again since my insulin changes, increase in activity and immune system finally got its act together again. I am back on track and if you want a little support with the weight issue I will back you up if you want kiddo(tsyvertsen1@sbcglobal.net)I will be happy to coordinate with you if you want to write me above email. We need to keep ourselves on track now that we are mended and I for one have been able to now finally get it going again to realizing that being given a second chance is a very big thing that I will not do well if I don't get back into a diligent awareness of diet and exercise. Let me know! Anyway about the mammogram(pardon my scattered writing here Lillian as I have a garden gnome planter sitting upside down by my garden gate in the middle of having a new "paint job" and I have to do the painting in different times so he is sort of unhappy being upside down out in the open and I am trying to hurry and get him in a position to continue with his sapphire blue "Hat" shortly. Being a painter yourself, I know you know the feeling of not wanting to put the paint brush down when you are on a roll! Ha. I like your acrylics! Nice color combos! Peaceful. Oh yeah, back to the mammogram which I didn't want to do for fear of the tender areas but I decided to make an appt. so I go in for mine on June 18th. With what you wrote about your experiences and health I think maybe you ought to go too! I am glad you mentioned it in your post as now I know it was the right time to get it done. I am waiting with a smirk on my face for the day when the "Man" responsible for designing this "mammography machine" tries it out for himself so he feels the Squishiness of the procedure and in his case the "shelf" shifts a little lower below the waist. Sorry if I offended you ladies but I have many men think we are nuts for not liking to go get this done when we have to. In truth it isn't as bad as it looks. So I hope you too will make your appointment and do know that I being one month out of surgery than yours that I too have spots up and down the incision and especially on the one right side of the breast that has issues with soreness. It is all part of the healing of the chest wall and this area is commonly very sore for some time for a lot of women. In time it will heal and life will get back to normal, eh? Well, I am off to work on the elf. Take care.

Steven,what a lovely, way to help support my new appearance. Thank you for the boost. You are special inside and out......as you understand the ohs chest scars on women is a delicate situation. Thank you. 💗 I have big thick and long scars all over my front torso along with odd shaped abdomen from repeated. ....over 20 surgeries. My husband tells me I look beautiful. I thought he was blinded by love. Those few words from your male perspective means more than vanity, thank you for posting heart friend.

Hello Terrie, nice to see you respond and that you have life going on☺. I am tickled and delighted to see we share some things and are both going in for mammograms.😊😊.let me know all goes well☺. I don't get the 30 pounds. My glucose A1C,and thyroid just came back normal. ... menopause was surgically induced 10 yrs ago and hormones just fine. I will be 52 this year......hmmm. Anyway, I have gotten my husband to eat healthier, I have always had to since my body is so sensitive. I do 45min to an hour of cardio 7 days a week,eliptical, and incline treadmil.i walk 5 days a week for 1 hour with my next door neighbor. I carry on with my art,music,family and mental health care.i hope my body is able to get back metabolizing normally. I feel quite healthy over all. I have had so many new starts in life physically and emotionally. It is taxing,but I struggle well......i wish continued good health and happy days for you. Stay in touch.

Lillian- You sound like you are on the right path and I am not far from you in determination either! We can do this and our bodies will learn to metabolize better the more we continue to stay positive and strong in attitude and in Faith in ourselves to get his done! You stay in touch also and feel free to email me if you care to keep checking in on our progress! Take care now and keep posting as this community is a great support and love. I will be in touch too.

I had my first mammogram ever about 3 months post-op. I told the tech I had just had surgery, and she was very gentle with me, telling me how she was going to move my body before she did it. I experienced the expected squishing discomfort but no issues related to surgery.