I'd always thought of myself as being pretty thick-skinned when it came to having surgery -- pretty macho -- since I'd been having surgery since my emergency appendectomy when I was four and a half. I'd followed that up with (the now deeply ironic) breast reduction surgery when I was in college, and a C-Section, so when I was facing my bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction I felt I was prepared for what I would find when I was finally ready to step into the shower. Not so. Maybe it's because the woman we bought our house from had a penchant for wall-to-wall mirrors and glass shower doors in every bathroom, or because there were just so many areas of surgical "involvement" that I was hard to avoid looking at one of them, but that first time alone in the bathroom taking a modified shower made me cut things short and shuffle back to bed as fast as I possibly could (which wasn't very fast at all). Even though I knew my reaction was understandable, I couldn't help feeling like I'd somehow failed the first real test to accept my body as it was now.

10. Not Making A Full and Complete Recovery in 6-8 Weeks

I still remember the surgeons telling me that recovery from TRAM flap surgery was generally 6 to 8 weeks. When I raised an eyebrow and asked for the true time-table, they gave in and said 8-10 weeks. So imagine how much of a failure I felt like when 6 months had passed and I was still having trouble getting out of a chair. Not that I'm complaining since a lot of breast cancer patients have a lot worse things to happening than having trouble getting out of a chair, or out of a car, or out of a bed, or into a bed, or rolling over in bed, but I just want to make a point that unless there's realllllllly something wrong with me (which of course is entirely possible), recovery time from a double TRAM flap is not 6-8 weeks, or 8-10 weeks. It is more like (wait: I'm doing the math -- and I'll show my work -- 6 x 4) 24-30 weeks.