23 Years Old, 32J, and Counting Down to My New Life! - New Hampshire

Sorry these photos are late again guys, but here are some of the photos, I'm having phone issues that are making retrieving my photos a pain. Since the near-2-week point, I started slowing having issues with the incision on my left breast, that would progressively worsen almost every 2 days. Finally, the night before my 4-week post-op mark, the incision opened up nearly all the way from my areola to my T-junction (luckily I had an appointment with my surgeon that following morning anyways). It definitely stung quite a bit, but didn't hurt nearly as bad as you'd think from looking at it. Despite its wide appearance, I didn't actually lose any skin there (except for a patch at the top of my areola), so the PS was able to pull it back together and stitch it closed on the 31st. I just had an appointment today, since apparently the results of my labs came back yesterday evening saying that my incision was contaminated or infected with bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa), and they put a silver sponge on it, which is super cool (like, the sponge dressing has silver ions or whatever in it to help prevent the growth of bacterial colonies). Damn thing probably costs more than my phone xD Right now the infection is manageable, so knock on wood with that. They always knew that it'd be a risk of sewing me back together. I go back for another appointment in two days (to get my sutures removed), and then again next week to see the third PS on their staff for a check-up, especially since they are concerned with my infection and that a small part of my incision may be opening back up again, naturally (just my luck). Besides that one area, the rest of it seems to be healing better at least. Who knows :/

Hi everyone! I'm sorry for not having posted at all this past month since my surgery (though apparently I posted 1 day post-op, and I don't even remember doing so - well played, pain meds). My excuses, summed up, are as follow - 1.) I didn't have my laptop on me for most of the past few weeks, and posting on my phone would have been a pain, and 2.) I've had a truly terrible time healing, and have made the hour and a half trip to my PS office many times since. I actually just got back from there - between driving and my visit it took 6 hours :/
My post-op healing process went very smoothly the first 2 weeks. I had less pain than I expected, and I honestly just slept. A lot. The worst part about the entire thing was the drains and the side effects from the oxycodon and the general anesthesia. Those were pretty miserable, actually. I had the drains in for 3 days, and they were my only true source of pain, because apparently that's where the nerves for the breast come around from the spine. Pro tip: if they give you an option for getting your drains out sooner, take it. However, once they were out, I felt like a different person, and the pain was minimal. I also stopped taking my pain meds early because I couldn't handle the terrible headaches and constipation, as well as the crappy nap cycle it had me on. But the pain wasn't bad. Being bed-ridden, however, was so frustrating. Around day 4 I was already over it. I'm an active person, and I hated not being able to do, well, basically anything.

My healing process went pretty well from there on out, until around the 2 week mark, when I noticed a small pocket of fluid building up at the top of my left areola. That burst from the pressure of my surgical bra pretty quickly, and the PA attending to me at that point told me that it would probably scab up a little, but it wouldn't be a big deal. Besides that everything looked great. Fast forward about 4 days, and I found that the small scab had grown pretty large (maybe an inch long by a centimeter wide), and spread to the bottom of my areola where it connects to the incision heading down towards the T-junction. It was concerning looking, but the PA seemed confident that it would heal. Since everything seemed in order, and I was feeling much better, I ended up taking a weekend trip out to see my friend (just to sit around, talk, etc, nothing to disturb the girls). I woke up my second day there to see that the spot beneath my areola had completely opened up on that incision, at least over an inch down the incision line. The fatty layer beneath my skin was actually spilling out a little. It was scary, to say the least. I went to the local ER there, and all they could do was tape me back together, since they didn't have a plastic surgeon there and didn't want to mess with anything. That following Monday (the 3-week mark), I made sure I got in to see my PS or someone from her office. By that point it had gotten even worse. It had gotten raw, goopy, looked terrible, and had opened up even further. The nurse that I was seeing informed me that at that point there was nothing the could really do. Stitching it up would lead to a great risk in infection, and bigger scars. They gave me Medihoney (an amazing ointment, I recommend it to anyone for wound healing) to put on the open area and told me that what I had was very rare - probably only around 1% of breast reduction patients suffer from this complication. They said they would have to let it heal all split open wide like that, and then at the 6-month point go back in to do a scar revision surgery. I'm not going to lie, I cried for almost an hour after that. On that day my left breast got the nickname "Frankentitty." Of course, as I'm leaving, they gave me the whole "keep an eye on it, it should be fine, call if it gets worse or infected" spiel. Fortunately, I already had an appointment with my PS for that next week (the 4-week mark), for her to do a final check-up on me before she moves away (half-way across the country!). Well, last night (the night before my appointment with her), I got out of the shower, only to see that my incision had completely split almost all of the way open from my areola to my T-junction. It looked nasty and definitely freaked me out. There was nothing I could do about it then, so I went to bed.
That next morning I went to the hospital for my appointment. It was crazy. My PS was shocked to discover my huge open wound, and was upset - she was really sweet and sympathetic throughout this entire thing. She and her other plastic surgeon colleagues (they have 3 or 4 surgeons working there) said that they have never seen anything like this. Therefore, any treatment plan they devised for me would be partially experimental in that they didn't know for sure if it would work or was the best course of treatment. In the end they decided that she would stitch me up in their clinic right then. Unfortunately, that required using external sutures, so those ones will lead to extra scarring (like the typical trackmarks you see with stitches). The only other option was waiting until Friday for an OR slot, but she didn't feel comfortable leaving me hanging open until then, understandably. Additionally, my body had pushed out a large amount of the stitches in my left breast, so she was worried that using a similar approach in the OR might lead to the same thing happening. We still have no idea why this happened - my right breast came out AMAZING. She told me that it was the highest standard that they always hope to achieve. She did a perfect job on it - size, shape, everything. Even the scarring is minimal, and the lines are perfect, straight, and not very noticeable. But for some reason, even though everything was done exactly the same for my left breast, it ended up looking more like a bad boating accident than anything else.

So. In the end I spent an hour on the table numbed up while she stitched my gaping wound back together. I go back in on Friday, where the PA will re-evaluate and determine if I will need to go back into the OR for surgery to fix it further. Either way they said I'll need to undergo a scar revision surgery, perhaps at the 6-month point. Also, she said maybe they'd need to/be able to tattoo my areola to hide the scar, so that's kind of a cool concept xD
So I'm facing at least one more surgery, possibly two. Lucky me xP Ironically I'm in a lot more pain from getting these sutures than I ever was at any other point during the recovery phase. I have no idea how I'm going to sleep tonight (hence this long post, kudos if you've gotten this far).

I'll post photos in the morning, I don't feel like dealing with them at this moment. I'll warn everyone ahead of time - they're pretty nasty looking. And for anyone who's a hypochondriac (I practically am myself, I understand), I'm just telling you now - don't assume the worst about your own recovery after seeing these photos! From what I've gathered this is a pretty incredibly rare scenario, so I still urge each and every one of you to take the plunge and get the breast reduction if you need it! I'm even grateful that I did - Frankentitty and all. I'd do it all over again. My back, neck, and head have never felt better. Feel free to ask me any questions - I hope people can at least learn from my crappy experience!

Sorry for the late update, but yesterday went by so quickly and I just slept most of the night once I got home.
The surgery went way easier than expected! My nurses were absolutely amazing. They made the entire process way easier and almost fun. They gave me some relaxing meds to help ease my anxiety about the anaesthesia (I was so nervous about that). They strapped me to the OR table, and must have pushed the anaesthesia without warning me because one minute I was talking to the nurses and the next I was waking up as they were moving me off the OR complaining that they didn't do the surgery yet xD in recovery I woke up relatively easy and pain-free. They gave me more medicine, and waited until I was ready to go. All I wanted to do was sleep, and so I did the entire way home on my recovery pillow.
So far, from what I have seen, the doctor did an amazing job with them! She managed to pull off a "small C," and took almost 5.5 pounds all together! Especially considering that they are bigger than what I would have wanted, I'm very surprised I was carrying around so much weight!
The first day I wasn't in much pain. I could move around pretty easily and just slept a lot. However, this morning I was in a lot more pain, regardless of the pain meds. All the things I was able to do yesterday I could no longer do (slide in/out of bed by myself, use the bathroom independently, etc.) Are we allowed to use anti-inflammatory meds? I feel like reducing some of this pressure will help with the pain. I have drains, and one is draining a lot quicker than the other, and one is red liquid while the other is purple. Should I be concerned?
More updates to follow!