My BRCA Journey

Christmas rolled around and I was fairly down that I was still dealing with this flipper. It stayed in place for Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day I was given a not so big surprise of a flipped left expander. I went about my day and tried to cover up. I had to select my clothing very specifically because I could clearly see the difference in most of my clothes – as could my family.

The next day I woke up and immediately was emotional. My expander had rotated – as in, it flipped completely. I could barely feel the magnetic port and was panicking. My fear came true – I now had one side that was basically flat and the other side was rounded and “normal.” I quickly started referring to my left side as Ken and my right side as Barbie.

I googled, I jumped on tiktok, IG, FB, and messaged Megan on the Kaiser page to ask how to flip it back. I tried over and over again without success. I did my best to push it out of my mind, but instead kept trying to push it back into place. I went to bed that night feeling defeated and super down.

The next morning I was determined to get it back into place. I tried every position imaginable and ended up in tears on the couch watching Christmas Movies. I had a theory of how it needed to be flipped and this darn expander kept proving to be more stubborn. Let it be known, I go after what I want and don’t stop until I get what I want..

I had a dinner planned with a dear friend and absolutely refused to take Barbie and Ken to dinner with me. Ie nded up figuring out that if I got it into a position where the side was facing forward and i was able to push from my left side in, I could feel the magnet and PUSH that. The scream I let out when it flipped was heard throughout my house – woke up my 4 year old, but I had done it!

That night I refused to eat chicken breast, haha. I didn’t want to see anything that resembled the expander that had stressed me out.