I wasn't sure if I was going to post a 4 week update, but as one side of my chest isn't healing as fast as the other, I thought it would be useful for others to see that not everything is always perfect, but it will all be worth it in the end.
It was around 2-3 weeks of being post op that I noticed my right nipple had sort of split. There wasn't any scabbing on around 1/4 of it, but you could see almost like flesh as opposed to pink skin. I wasn't worried at this point, but I was a little apprehensive as I hadn't seen this before. Because I couldn't find anything online that looked similar to mine, I decided to photo it and send it off to Dr Yelland who got back to me straight away and told me it looked fine but I should keep it covered with a dressing. He also told me to try and keep it as dry as possible.
Not everything is always perfect, but it will all be worth it in the end.
It doesn't hurt and it's not red, but because it just doesn't really feel like it's healing or changing much, I did start to panic. I sent him some more pictures the other day and he agrees with me that not much seems to of changed, but it still doesn't look concerning or infected. It bleeds a little (mainly at night) and there is also some yellow goo on it, but I've been assured this is just my body healing. He even said that if I wanted to go and get him to look at it then he'd be happy to (he's honestly so nice).
I'm not panicked or anything at the minute, because It's not infected. But when you have one nipple that you think is perfect, it can be quite disheartening to see the other one just slowly pulling itself along. I do think its just part of the of life, one side doing better than the other, but it is still annoying.
Here's a photo of the bump down the middle of my chest that I mentioned in my post a couple of weeks ago. I've learnt to love it a bit more since then. A subscriber also mentioned that they had the same and that with some massage it has gone down, so I'm hopeful mine will do the same.
Besides all that though, I honestly feel really good. Everyday I wake up and just slip on a t-shirt and I'm done. I don't have to mess about with binders and feeling like I'm limited on how long I can be out of the house for. I can stroll around my garden with my top off, I can wear a vest around the house and answer the door without having to slip a jumper on. There's so many little things that you do before top surgery that just become habit and learning to no longer do those things is going to take years to break. I'm working on things like my posture, as before even if I was wearing a binder, I wouldn't stand tall. I also keep on having like mini panics when I'm out, almost like that feeling of when you put your hand in your pocket and your phone isn't their, except it's with my binder. I'll then clock on to the fact I don't need it anymore and this rush of relaxation takes over. It's so weird.
I'm excited to start massaging the scars with bio oil. Only one week left and then I can take the tape off and finally have a good scrub at all the glue that doesn't seem to want to get off of my body. I'm so happy with my results, even if one of my nipples is being a slow little guy.