Ev's kink corner

OK!
So, today I'm having part of my breast removed to try to save the rest of it.
I have an orphan disease. Pharmaceutical companies don't research it because it isn't profitable enough. It's called "hidradenitis suppurativa" and most of the info about it online is wrong. I wouldn't even trust the mayo clinic on this one.
I am seeing a team of specialists at Stanford about it. Have someone there who has decided to make it their life's work.
When I was 7, I suffered a severe trauma (it involved trafficking) and trauma can activate an autoimmune disease if you have the genetic markers for it. Mine showed up a little earlier than most people, as a result, since normally it appears at puberty.
The pediatrician told my parents that I had "boils" because I was "dirty."
I spent so many years full of shame, obsessively bathing twice or three times a day.
Turns out what it actually is, as far as they understand it now, is that my immune system mistakenly sees sweat glands and hair follicles as the enemy and attacks them.
Stage 1 is a giant cyst-like structure that can swell up, usually to the size of a golf ball, but sometimes a lot bigger.
Stage 2, it eats channels into my flesh. Channels/sinus tracts/roots/tunnels, whatever people decide to call it. I think they are calling it "roots" right now.
Stage 3, it honeycombs through the flesh.
Stage 4, it completely destroys an area of flesh, like a flesh eating virus.
For a long time, doctors thought it was acne, or a bacterial infection. It isn't.
What has been discovered, however, is that in 50% of cases, botox can cause total remission. You have to keep getting botox, and it is expensive as hell. We got Medicare to cover part of that, but I'm going in blind, as Stanford's "financial counseling center" never did figure out what percentage Medicare will pay for.
If it works, I will probably have to pour all the money I can make into this. Even if it doesn't, I'll have to find some way to pay for what they do today.
There is also a persistent site on my breast that has been flaring off and on for the past year. We're really worried it'll go to Stage III, and that I'll lose the breast, so we're removing it.
This is giving me a lot of pretty bad feels. Mutilating my breast is going to hit me hard, emotionally. I have so many dear friends who have had breast cancer and had to have a complete mastectomy. I have it way easier than they do. I need to remember that.
We won't know how deep the "roots" go until we cut me open today. I might need a second, more invasive surgery that will take a much bigger piece of breast.
I'll be awake for this procedure. Local doesn't work very well on me, so they will have to give me a bunch of shots of it. Also, needles tend to make me punch people, hah!
So, I'll be loaded up on Ativan. My beloved partner will be with me, and he'll be making sure I am ok.
Traffic will mean a 3 hour drive home, so we will probably end up hanging out at a cafe I love post-surgery. That's gonna suck, but I know they will take good care around me there, and if it gets really bad, a dear friend has a friend who will let me sleep in his spare room in San Francisco.
So, that's what's happening today. Don't do a google image search unless you really like horrifying gore.
Best wishes appreciated, and thank you!