chest status: alas! + cake

I realized the other day that one of the benefits I get through my work it the option to enroll in a pre-tax medical expenses flexible spending account. In other words, they take out money from my paycheck pre-taxes, and use it to reimburse me for medical expenses incurred over the course of that year. Up to $3,000 can be taken out per year. And I ask myself...why the HELL didn't I use that to help pay for my chest surgery? What with the tax-free status, it would've been like getting a free extra thousand bucks. What was I thinking?

Also, I could've used it this year to help pay for my glasses!

But you can only sign up for it once a year, and you can only use it to pay for things that took place during the same fiscal year. So alas, it's no good to me now.
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I bought some cocoa butter lotion (with Vitamin E! it declares on the tube) to rub into my chest surgery scars, since I've just run out of the oil I'd been using. I think the oil did some good, and I think this cocoa butter stuff will be good, too...it's certainly a very effective moisturizer, and it makes me smell like cake batter, which is a definite bonus. It's pretty thick, so it requires some vigorous rubbing in to get it to soak in to my skin, and I think that itself is good for my chest, too...massage is definitely proven to help break down scars/prevent adhesions, and I suspect it'll help with nerve regrowth, too, to have that stimulation. Certainly, my chest tingles pleasantly for a few minutes when I've finished my vehement cocoa butter rubdown, morning and night.
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Scars are looking good- still quite pink, but fading and flattening. It's pretty much only under my right armpit that it's still lumpy, and I can tell that it's going to keep getting better. My right nipple is not as nice as my left- the areola is more lopsided in shape, and has some persistent dry/flaky skin. But the left nipple itself has a little discolored bump (I suspect from where the Evil Milkmaid pinched me at that Halloween party last year), so I guess they both have their little quirks. Still not much sensation in them, but they definitely get hard and soft in response to temperature and sometimes in response to tactile stimulation. And sometimes for no discernible reason.

I'll post some pictures later tonight.