I’m healing. I’m also starting to think of the surgery last Tuesday as my last surgery – the last surgery as part of my active treatment for breast cancer. Arguably, this surgery wasn’t part of my breast cancer treatment, rather it was follow up ‘revision’. It was mostly cosmetic, except for the hole in my stomach, which I’m happy to report is no longer a hole.

I bought some new “shape wear” to wear underneath my clothing. These items mean I don’t need to wear the bulky post-surgery abdominal brace that I wore for 8-weeks after my reconstruction surgery. One of the challenges with shape wear was figuring out exactly what I wanted, and how it would work for me. Fortunately, a trip to Macy’s resulted in a few different options. Here are two that are currently working for me:

• Jockey Microfiber Slipshort – In order to get these to provide enough support for my inner thighs (which are sporting nice post-lipo bruises) I had to go with the size small. I’m a little dumbfounded that I even fit into a small!
• Jockey Tank Slimmers – I bought this one in a large and a medium. I’m currently wearing the large, but feel that once some of the swelling has gone down and I’ve lost the post-surgery water weight, the medium will fit better. This is what replaces the abdominal binder – as it provides compression around my entire abdominal area (from under breasts to hip bones).

I am also wearing a sports bra that provides compression to the sides of my breasts (the other area that was lipoed) but also holds the bandages in place over my incisions (I can’t have any tape on my skin). After the shopping trip, I went into my closet and tried on some shape showing clothing. I’m quite happy with how I look! (never thought I’d actually wear that t-shirt).