It was a big day today and I’ve spent an embarrassingly large portion of it trying to think of a catchy blog title. I was thinking about the title, “Walking toward Boobalon” after the poem that contains the line, “Walking toward Babylon.” Then I went on my fact-checking mission and realized that there is no such a poem. Then I remembered that it wasn’t “walking” it was “slouching”. Then I realized I was thinking of the Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming” that contains the line, “Slouches toward Bethlehem.” Eek! I can’t boobify Bethlehem! That’s going over a line that even the woman who spent three days thinking of breast nicknames and another day describing the state of her nipple, is unwilling to cross. One might argue that boobify-ing Babylon, also in the Bible would be too much. But as I recall, Babel (another name for Babylon) just generated a lot of spoken languages, a far cry from the city in which Jesus was born. Plus, Babylon was founded by a man named Nimrod. Babylon is just a nugget of comedy gold.

So I decided that rather than waste more time trying to be clever with my title for the blog, I’d just better get writing. I had an appointment with the plastic surgeon today. I was worried about it because he has been kind of vague about the timeline for reconstruction and given how busy he is, I was afraid he’d give me another, “Come back in four weeks, we’ll see how things are going, and then a few weeks later, we’ll do the first part of reconstruction.” Thankfully, he was happy with my healing and said that we could schedule my next procedure, which is the placement of a tissue expander to be gradually filled with saline.So I was excited until I met with the surgery scheduler who said, “He’s so booked. I’ve been scheduling into late November.” Then she found a couple of cancellations and we settled on September 26th. This surgery will be in his office and take about an hour.

Dr. Welk said that he will initially fill the saline expander (basically like an implant) about half full. So in bread-making terms, my “unleavened breast” will proceed to the “sponge” stage. A sponge is basically a mixture of a little bit of flour with liquid and yeast, which is allowed to ferment before adding flour and making a dough. Bakeries use this multi-step process. Home cooks like me usually skip the sponge part because it requires an extra day. But good reconstruction, like a loaf of artisan bread, takes patience.

So save the date! September 26th is stage 1 of the leavening process!