I'm 15 years out and still remember looking down & thinking bride of Frankenstein. I does get better. Go get some help to deal with issues now! If you wait and try to put it aside believing that you will deal with it later. Then know that one day it will sneak up on you and hit you like a freight train!

Yes, it's all normal. I still grieve the loss of my breast. I had nice breast. Two nice breast. Now I have one nice breast, and what I refer to as my middle boob; its puffy right in the middle of my chest where the surgeon finished her sutures. I think some good therapy or counseling couldn't hurt.

It also becomes a handy pin cushion while sewing.

I had a double mastectomy when I was 28 years old and diagnosed with stage 3 bc. I did the same thing I cried I thought I'm going to look hideous with no breast, I had D cup size breast and I had no idea how I was going to look to my at the time husband. I had a radical on my right side where the tumor was and chest muscle also removed and so I had not flap left like I did on my left side. I tried reconstruction but it didn't take, my plastic surgeon was a idiot and tried to give me D cup breast back, well you cant do that when you don't have the skin so it deflated halfway through. I have nothing on my right side but a prosthesis and on my left I have a B cup size tissue expander which he never took out or replaced. The staples did not hurt coming out but I would take jayleneh67 advice and use something to lesson the scar mine is very bad and I did not put anything on it. I did show my husband and he was fine with it. We are now divorced and I have not shown any other man any of it. I have bad scars bad dent from the muscle being removed and I had 20 lymph nodes removed and it makes a dent in my armpit. I have a prosthesis also on my left side to make it look normal. I have wonderful bras from Wal-Mart that make it easy to wear them. This is my feelings on all of it. I am a 21 year survivor and I am grateful for that, but I hate the way it looks and feels I still have pain and lymphedema and still cry over the way I look. I wish I would have gone and talked to someone at the time but I didn't, but I have in the 21 years did the walks, did talks through programs and those have really helped. Everyone is different of how they handle all of it. I hope you come out just fine from it, cry if you want to, scream if you want to, whatever helps you get through it do it. I don't know if I helped at all but I hope in some way I did. People say our breast doesn't define us and they don't but they are still a part of us that is no longer there.

It has been 6 months since my double mastectomy and my left side is still slightly swollen from all the radiation. But my right side looks and feels good.