Things seem to be gradually improving, to wit: Dr. Lucky switched me to a new HRT regime - a combination of an estrogen patch and a progesterone pill. A few days after the switch, I started bleeding heavily, so heavily that I said to my Boy Toy, "if I suddenly turn the color of Elmer's Glue and get really sleepy, please rush me to the nearest emergency room."
This of course would have been very difficult to do since we were skiing in Vermont and hemorrhaging to death on the slopes would have been seriously inconvenient. Fortunately, the heavy bleeding stopped within a few hours and a few days after that the bleeding stopped completely. Yay! For the first time in three months, I've been completely spotless for one week and counting. Fingers are crossed.
The fly in the ointment is that I've been having increased hot flashes and some night sweating. Hot flashes can be very distracting. There I am sitting in a client meeting discussing the ramifications of the estate planning segments of the Obama tax compromise or some other such scintillating topic, when I suddenly begin feeling as if flames are shooting out of my ears.
Involuntarily, I find my fingers slowly creeping towards the ice bucket on the table.
Then I hear the calming voice of Yoda in my head saying things like "Ears on fire are not. Dump ice bucket over head, you will not." Thereafter I can usually carry on with my blather more or less uninterrupted but I'd rather not have to engage in sidebars with Yoda in the middle of client meetings. I'm going to see if the hot flashes resolve within the next few weeks. Otherwise, I may ask Dr. L for a bigger patch.
Today is also the one year anniversary of my prophylactic mastectomy. I can't believe it's already been a whole year. I have to say, when all is said and done, it was much less of a big deal than I thought it would be. I like my new breasts just fine. I actually really like them a lot - they still have softness and contour, but they are droop a lot less than the originals. I already have come to feel like these have always been my breasts, that they were never different - it's pretty amazing how the mind adapts to physical changes. I do have a small area of fat necrosis that has to be dealt with. But apart from that, I truly have zero complaints about my reconstruction.