Mindfulness Showers

My Tuesday Appointment - 8/13

On Tuesday, August 13th (yep, the first day of school) I had an appointment with my plastic surgeon’s office. They are responsible for wound care and my drains. Last time I was there, I was itchy and irritable. Today, I was vulnerable.

I’m a rule follower, a perfectionist, and someone who doesn’t like to take daily showers - especially after major surgery! My doctor’s protocol is daily showers - other doctors’ protocols are no showers. I’m learning that is a big debate in the recovery world.

Anyways, so we are at my appointment checking in on how things are going. I didn’t meet the criteria for drain removal, so I have to keep them in. Goal is to have two days in a row of 30ml or less of fluid discharge. I’m in between 30-40ml, wamp wamp. She said they will definitely take them out at the week 3 marker, which will be next Tuesday! She did say if I get lucky and I’m able to produce less, call her and she will remove them on Friday! I haven’t achieved this yet.

She then she looked at my incisions and noticed I had a lot of left over sticky stuff on my skin from the sticky bandages they placed over the incisions for the first four days post op. I guess, that sticky stuff should have all fallen off by now with my daily showers. oops! So as she was telling me I need to scrub more (my perfectionist part, heard “scrub better") I started to cry. And if I wasn’t in a doctor’s office setting, it would have been one of those deep hysterical cries. Instead, it was the quiet cry, with the scrunched up face, and random sniffles trying to hold back the tears. My mom noticed and then she started to cry, and then my NP, Whitney, noticed and she started to cry. She then shared some words with me, that struck me so deep which made me wanted to cry even more. She saw me. She understood why I wasn’t scrubbing myself. It wasn’t because I wasn’t taking good care of my hygiene, it was because it came down to my new reality and acceptance of my reality. “I had cancer and now my breast are gone.” I’m crying right now as I type that sentence, “I had cancer and now my breast are gone.” It is hard for me to touch and scub them because there is an emotional barrier blocking me from touching them.

Mindfulness Showers

So before surgery, I loved mindfulness showers. It was a ritual I did to help ground me. I would get in the shower, turn the water to hot and just notice all the different sensations in my body as the hot water flowed over my skin. The different tingling in the head, to the face, chest, back, etc. I loved it!

After surgery, mindfulness showers became the worst. I did not want to be grounded and definitely not aware of my body, I wanted to leave it! I am not familiar with this body and it hurts and it is damaged. And my nerves, they feel different now, even where surgery did not take place. A shower that once brought relaxation and rejuvenation now brings discomfort and exhaustion. I didn’t realize it until my appointment on Tuesday, that I have been dissociating (escaping my body) as soon as I got in the shower. I would close my eyes and just escape - I did not want to feel, I did not want to notice. Before my appointment on Tuesday, I would describe taking a shower as painful. Now I realize, it was not “hurt” but “discomfort.”

Uncomfortable or distressed?

A question I’m always asking my clients, “are you uncomfortable or feeling distressed?” Uncomfortable is okay, distress not so much. Distress means the body is under stress and we need to slow down. Discomfort means, I don’t like this and I am okay. My clients then identify if they are feeling discomfort or distress and then if discomfort if they want to follow it or pause. Most of the time, they decide to move forward with the discomfort because they are ready to heal. I’ve witnessed the courage it takes to be with the discomfort. I’ve witnessed the relief and freedom that comes with the healing. So using my clients as inspiration, I decided to embrace my discomfort and move forward with my healing.

I had been avoiding touching myself in the shower. One, it feels different. I can feel my chest on my fingers, but my chest can’t feel my fingers. It’s a very strange sensation. Two, touching myself means it actually happened. For me, seeing myself is different than actually touching myself. I don’t know how to describe it, but it goes a layer deeper. I can see myself with a layer or clothes on. I can see myself naked in the mirror and tell myself what happened. But touch, there is no hiding. There is no reflection. It’s just raw acceptance for me. And with all the nerve damage, it makes touching yourself even odder. So it’s real hard for the mind to comprehend touch. It was just easier to escape!

So now I’m trying to ground myself in my showers. Get comfortable in my own body again, refamiliarize myself with touch and sensations. I’ve learned how important it is to reteach my body about sensation and touch. Let it get used to the feel of hot water again. Then what soap feels likes. And my hands rubbing my body and then a wash cloth. It’s like I’m retraining my body to learn how to feel again. It’s mind boggling, as it was only my chest that lost feeling, but when I first started taking showers, it was as if all my nerves in my body didn’t know what to do! So here I am a couple days out of this new realization, re-familiarizing my body to touch. My body for the most part has gotten used to hot water, I’m still adjusting in the chest area, but my head, face, back, and legs now like the feeling of hot water again! My next step is to move to the raw acceptance and wash my chest with my own hands. It’ll be hard. I’ve given myself permission to be vulnerable, to allow myself to cry, to fully accept what has happened to me. Acceptance is sometimes that hardest part to healing. And the only way through it, is to go through it. So I’m digging deep to find my courage, to touch myself, to become familiar with what I have now, to be with it, and to show it compassion.

I’m so grateful for my my nurse practitioner, Whitney, who was so gentle with me on Tuesday. Who saw me when I couldn’t see myself. Thank you.