Bilateral Mastectomy:

My bilateral mastectomy (not as much blood here as you'd think, but still nothing for a squeamish person to be looking at)... the tattoo really helps demonstrate exactly how the skin is manipulated, I'm glad it was there.

Laparoscopic Hysterectomy:

I opted all on my own for a full hysterectomy rather than just hormone suppression or removal of my ovaries, there was no pressure.  These images can be a bit more explicit than some of the other surgical photos since there are some that were taken internally; if you're squeamish about such things you won't want to look at these.

Implanted Port:

I specifically asked to stay awake for this surgery, which was when they put the port in my chest (a port is a direct line to a vein so that they didn't have to keep finding a vein in my arm for the chemo).  I know it looks like I'm under in one of the photos, but really my eyes are just screwed shut on account of the pain, heh.

After the mastectomy...

Chemo-related Hair Loss:

I started to lose my hair about two weeks into my chemo and opted to shave my head all at once.  I hate these pictures.  Well, except for the last one...

Holtor Monitor:

For a while I was hooked up to a holtor monitor to keep tabs on my heart rate... I snapped this photo when some asshat I was going to play pinball with sent me a rude text message for cancelling without enough notice.

Pin-up Photos:

Some pin-up style photographs I took in an effort to prove that I didn't need my own boobs or hair to feel sexy.  Mostly they just made me feel old and tired, pfft.

Treatment Related Weight Gain:

A lot of people realize that cancer treatment negatively affects a person's appearance in a lot of ways, but not a lot of people realize that some treatments can cause weight gain that is uncomfortable, expensive, and unmanageable.  I think I hate these photos more than the head-shaving photos, but I think people not ever posting photos like these are why women think that they're the only ones gaining so much weight with their treatment.  Bleargh.

Chemo / IV Treatment:

I don't think that many people know what to expect when heading in for chemo or other IV treatments for the first time.  I sure didn't.  The whole process was a mystery to me... I didn't even know what the rooms would look like.  I wasn't really in the mood to take photos over the entire year (more than a year, maybe) of my treatment but I finally shot some pictures of my last treatment; hopefully they're helpful.

Nipple Reconstruction:

A lot of people (myself included) were curious as to how they were going to build me a pair of nipples from scratch, as it was... well, here's the pictorial guide to how it happened.  This is not for those who are squicky about surgical photos... it almost even pains me to look at them (I think I might be cringing right now).

I'll be posting more photos as I get them... it's a lot of work to sort through everything and make it presentable, and I do have a couple of other things to do besides work on this site.  Well, maybe only one.  Maybe I don't have any but I want it to seem like I do...