Houston we have b@@bs - well at least a good beginning

It has been a whirlwind of doctor visits, checkups and discussions here in the new year.
We have been at the plastic surgeon twice and Karen went to the cardiologist to get an EKG to get a baseline of her heart before she starts chemo.

Karen is up and moving around and is able to drive herself now. This gives her a lot more freedom now that I am back to working and she can get around to some of the doctor visits by herself.

Today we had our 2nd visit at the plastic surgeon and I joined as this was the first time they injected additional saline into the expanders for the breast reconstruction.
It actually went very quickly and we were surprised how simple and relatively crude a process it was.
They simply numb the skin above the the breast with a small shot and then they pulled out this cartoon size 60 mL syringe and needle. The expanders has a metal piece as part of the valve. They move a small magnet over the breast to find the valve and marks it with a pen. They then insert the needle in through the skin into the valve of the expanders and inject the saline. They put in about 120 mL in each breast which is in addition to the original 300 mL in there from the surgery.
The whole process only took about 5 min or so only and Karen went from a small A cup to something like a small B.
She is doing pretty good even though the injections does give some uncomfortable pressure on the skin and chest muscles. And I think we are both pleased to see that the process is working and the reconstruction is starting to take shape.

Karen will be in at the plastic surgeon again next week to get her next fill. That may be the last fill for now until the chemo is over - we don't really know how they do this as they normally try to be very careful about anything that may cause infection while she is on the chemo treatment.