How Can I Know Your Touch?

Yesterday I had the tissue expanders filled for the third time since my surgery. The procedure is never painful since I'm mostly numb across my entire upper chest, wrapping around under my armpits to edge of my back. It is nice to have some semblance of a breast beginning to take shape under my clothes.

The doctor noted that I still have some thick scabs on the center portion of my incisions on both sides. He gave me some Elta Lite lotion to soften both the incision areas, as well as the scabs to help them fall off. After only one day it seems to be making a huge difference and my scabs have already begun peeling up.

Last night I was in a lot of pain as a result of the expansion and had a difficult time putting on the lotion. When the expanders are under the muscle and are suddenly stretched it makes me unable to reach with one hand across my chest to reach the other side. I also couldn't apply the lotion with my hand on the same side. It became easier to ask my husband to apply it for me, so I asked him to help.

I squeezed some of the lotion onto his hand and he began to massage it into my breast area. At one time that would have so erotic, but all I could think was how my life has radically changed. As he rubbed this lotion into my skin, I felt nothing meaningful except gratefulness that he was helping me. There was no tingling, no nipple erection because of his touch. I think it finally fully struck me how much this changes our sex life. There's not one part of me that regrets making the decision for this surgery and yet that does not take away the feeling of loss that suddenly hit me. Part of me wanted to go back to the last time he touched my breasts and freeze that moment in time. If I could bottle that sensation and sell it to all the women around the world who've gone through this, I would be a rich woman. Then again, it occurs to me that even without that sensation I am still a rich woman in so many other ways.

Still, I cried gently when I longed to know he was touching me. To date, this is the greatest sense of loss I've felt.