(trans)prose

I had intended to post pictures at 9 months, 12 months, or both. I apologize for that not happening. This is what my chest looks like now–a year and a half after my chest reconstruction surgery.

The scars are now almost completely flat.  A couple of areas which gave me the most trouble during healing are still in the process of flattening out.  They have faded to pale pink and white, and seem to be fading more and more with time.  Some sections seem close to disappearing altogether.  Until this point, I have mostly avoided exposing the scars to direct sunlight, though I will probably switch to using sunscreen.

Areolar pigment is still returning–slowly but surely. I hardly notice, really. For a while, I was having issues with ingrown hairs, but they’ve settled down–now I have 5-7 hairs that actually grow through the areola. That used to bother me, but I don’t even notice anymore. The scars from the nipple grafts have completely disappeared, and my nipples aren’t as raised off of my chest as they had been. My nipples look and feel–to my at least–like nipples that had never been grafted.

Sensation is a trickier matter. My chest is not as sensate as the rest of my body, and not as sensate as it was before surgery. I don’t have any particular patches of numbness anymore. I have some sense of hot and cold throughout my chest. I can feel light and firm pressure through most of my chest–though the areas just above my incision lines, just below both my nipples, and right around my left nipple are hit and miss with light touches. Most of my chest can feel pain, though in the number areas it registers as a discomfort i can’t really place, rather than as pain. It’s a very strange feeling, and not one I enjoy.

My nipples aren’t completely insensate, but the sensations I get there are unpredictable, and not usually pleasant. I don’t usually feel hot/cold, and I sometimes can feel both light and deep pressure. At this point, though, my brain seem to just fill in the information I’m not actually getting, so I rarely notice that my nipples–or any sections of my chest–are insensate.