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Clothing - Robes (Part 2)

I am going to start out by saying that I didn't actually set out to buy the Amazon Essentials Women's Lightweight Waffle Mid-Length Robe.

I do need to replace my old robe that has been very gently and politely falling into disrepair while I use it as a housecoat, but the Amazon waffle robe is a cotton blend and too lightweight to be of much use (I think it's trying to ape the look/drape of the Parachute waffle robe, which I also wasn't interested in because it's too lightweight, nevermind that I had to go elsewhere to even SEE the measurements of their 3X robe and it's too small for me). So, I was definitely not going to buy it, because it wasn't going to be a good replacement for the robe I already have.

It's kind of a long story, and not even very interesting, but I did end up purchasing it. Not as a housecoat replacement, but as something to cover the top half of my body and keep me warm and/or decent while I dye/deep condition/etc my hair.

The Amazon waffle robe is thin and light but not translucent (at least the darker colors aren't—I ended up with Charcoal Heather in hopes that it would hide stains better). The women's robe has an inner tie that looks a little flimsy and might not last very long and an outer belt that's much better. I saw a lot of complaints about loose threads while checking the Amazon reviews, but mine has really nice stitching and seams and LOOKS pretty nice for the price. The cotton blend's only real advantage is the polyester keeps it from looking wrinkly, so it's got a decent drape and doesn't look like it lives wadded up on my bathroom floor no matter how true that is.

I bought the women's robe mostly because I liked the length and color selection better—the women's bathrobe has a shorter and longer version and comes up to a 7x, and the men's comes in a single length up to a 6x big, and the women's (currently) has about 6 more color options than the men's version.

It's also not very absorbent and definitely not very breathable (as one might expect from a thin-ish cotton/poly blend, but neither of those is a significant negative in my book.

For what I'm using it for, I'm actually pretty pleased. If you like women's robes (and if you're straight sized especially) you can find something warmer and softer that looks better. But if you absolutely, positively need a bathrobe soon (or a bathrobe you can travel with that you don't care if it's lost or damaged), it's probably about perfect. I don't think it's quite nice enough to give as a gift unless you know the person needs a bathrobe for surgery/etc, but it's a lot better than I expected for $22.80.

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It seems appropriate, on approximately the 2-year anniversary of this blog, to come back and basically say that I haven't abandoned this. Though I am, admittedly, a bit lost on what to do with it in the short term.

It's not even anything like, "oh, it feels weird to be working on something like this after the election."

If you know me personally, you know that I've been having a rough and chaotic time of things since about August of last year. Everything is starting to settle back down, so now I'm doing the work of putting everything back to rights that I've been neglecting for most of a year, which is not very glamorous.

I've also worked my way through pretty much anything I'd had prepared, even a rough sketch, so while I think there's plenty of other stuff I can discuss, it might be slower going for a bit.

I know I return to projects for this blog once it's spring, and I will. I will get there.

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One of the better resources I've seen when looking for phone apps to recommend is No-Bullshit Games, a curated list of Android/iOS games that are either free or low-cost and don't use dark patterns or extremely exploitative payment systems (more on the methodology here since it's pretty subjective).

The lists are separated by OS, and have other ways to sort including genre, rating, and cost.

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Not everyone wants or needs a wedge pillow for recovery, but Strategist did an article in early August profiling a few recommendations at a couple of different price points.

I'm hoping they'll do an updated post on backrests/husband pillows sometime soon, since the last one they did was in 2020 and I think one of their selections out of the whole list is still available for purchase.

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Part 3 Entertainment - Books Part 3

I've been trying to find more resources for books that are NOT romance as, again, I assume the average person reading this blog doesn't care about romance books.

The most obvious is Project Gutenberg for a large quantity of digitized public domain books, but Standard Ebooks has a much smaller selection of books that have been carefully proofread for conversion errors and styled to be more attractive and easier to read with a unified "look" across the books. Global Grey Ebooks also hosts similar styled public domain books in some unique categories and is maintained and styled by one person.

r/FreeEbooks is an all-genre subreddit with daily links to free ebooks across several storefronts, not just amazon, with categories clearly listed.

Librivox is the top choice for audiobooks for public domain books, with over 19,000 recordings.

And, on the offchance you ARE interested in romance, r/FreeRomanceBooks posts free events and free books they come across, and Zoe York (organizer of the original Stuff Your Kindle Day) has started a Stuff Your Kindle website where she tracks multiple affiliated and semi-affiliated events.

Among the events that I haven't seen mentioned prior to her website is Thrill Your Ereader, which appears to be a thriller-focused event (finally!).

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Strategist recently (August 22, 2024) updated this list of body lotions for dry skin, most of which are free of fragrances/essential oils and actives like AHAs (there is one on this list with AHAs and a heavy fragrance, but it's listed as an exfoliating lotion so it's not a surprise or anything).

Even if "heavy body moisturizer with no fragrance" isn't normally what you purchase for yourself, it's not uncommon to have drier-than-normal skin for weeks after undergoing general anesthesia and you may be more sensitive to fragrance agents than normal (with a bonus that you should probably not you anything with a fragrance you actually like immediately after surgery or a serious illness because your brain may end up associating that scent with the stressful postsurgical period instead of all of the other times you've used it).

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Part 3 Entertainment - Apps Part 1

I can't imagine I'll have much in the way of apps for you, because the Google Play store is a pit of despair that you cannot browse, but if I come across something I think might be useful, I'll happily share it.

Any apps I'd profile here would have to be:

For Android (somewhat obviously)

Either free or low-cost (I'm willing to pay single digits for a game I already know that I like and will meet all of the other criteria on this list, but not really much more.)

Says it doesn't share data with third parties and collects and accesses no more data than is reasonable for the features that it has. (A game with payments does need to have access to certain things, as does a game that allows you take pictures).

Always plays offline or can be played offline. I don't about anyone else, but I've never been stuck waiting ANYWHERE with decent wifi. I'm always in the waiting room that has no connection.

The somewhat obvious way to go with something like this is to purchase the cell phone port of a game that was released for NES/SNES/Sega Genesis. I used the tail end of a Play giftcard to buy the cell phone port of Dragon Quest II (Apple), a game that I've played so many times that I don't need access to a walkthrough and cost me like 2.60 after using my gift card balance. I doubt that's of much interest to anyone besides me, though, but several other similar games have cell phone ports if you know of one you think you would enjoy.

This tumblr post, however, got me interested in Simon Tatham's Puzzles (Apple), which has 40 logic puzzles in a single app (the Apple version has 38, your guess is as good as mine), including Sudoku. Does it have the best graphics? No. Will it run when I have no cell reception? Yes.

I'm looking through some of the other suggestions in that thread and seeing if any other apps are worth mentioning.

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I know that a lot of the links that I share, especially shopping links, are very North America-centric. I (unfortunately) live in the States, and have never sent anything to Europe or anywhere else, so there's no doubt that colors the resources I use and the places that I recommend.

I said all of that to make a post about iHerb, one of the places that I shop that cannot be accused of being exclusive to North America. iHerb says that it ships to over 180 countries, often with multiple shipping options. I've never had an issue with an order from iHerb and it always shows up pretty fast and for prices that are roughly comparable to Amazon (outside of the States, your experience may vary on how comparable they are).

If you know me, you know that I have a pretty negative view of most herbal products and dietary supplements, especially since the U.S. market for dietary supplements is incredibly bad and lacks transparency and accountability, even if the herbs and supplements did what they claimed to do (hardly any have rigorous testing for efficacy and safety). So, if I'm not buying herbs and supplements from iHerb, what sorts of things am I buying?

snacks, especially if you're on a special diet. I need soy-free ready-to-eat snacks for one of the guys and there's a pretty interesting set of options. We're especially partial to these California Gold Nutrition protein bars, which are an iHerb house brand and nearly always on sale. They also have a really wide selection of speciality candies and gummies, especially if you can't have cane sugar.

protein powder for smoothies - besides the normal whey and pea, they also have more unusual options like brown rice and pumpkin seed, both of which we really like.

multivitamins - one of the guys really likes the California Gold Nutrition Ultramins, which I'm not linking because most formulations are indefinitely backordered right now.

I also buy some letter vitamins from them, including Vitamins C and D supplements. It's not true of every product they carry, but many of them have independent lab certification (especially their house brands), which is one of my top concerns when buying these kinds of products. They're also one of the few reliable places to get soy-free fat-soluble vitamins (like Vitamin D) and my perception is their vegan/halal/kosher/etc vitamin offerings are quite good as well.

probiotics, especially their California Gold brand.

skincare products - I originally got into iHerb after the pandemic cut off my access to some of the other places I'd been buying skincare, and iHerb decided at the time to start carrying some Korean and Japanese skincare products. Their shipping is dramatically faster than a lot of my other options, and their prices and shipping times on some products, like Kikumasamune lotion, are basically unbeatable.

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Post-surgical nutrition is not one of my real areas of interest for this blog, for a lot of reasons. For example, as surgeries go, top surgery isn't a particularly invasive surgery and the recovery time isn't particularly long. Nutrition is also a somewhat complicated topic because there's no one-size-fits-all solution and trying to be specific enough to be useful but general enough to cover even part of the spectrum of possible diets is pretty difficult.

This is a moderately long article with a lot to think about, but I think that they managed to give a lot of very specific advice that will suit a wide variety of people. Some things that it includes that are difficult to find in a lot of articles on post-surgical nutrition are:

Written (at least partially) by an Registered Dietician who has a MHSc (Master of Health Science) as well.

Doesn't recommend any additional supplements outside of regular vitamins, a particular pet peeve of mine because of the ridiculously lax regulations on supplements in the states. I mean, maybe bromelain or arnica or whatever helps, but most likely it has zero benefit and at the risk of getting a supplement that's incorrectly labeled or intentionally tainted/cut with other products.

Wide variety of food recommendations, including some recs that would work for someone who's vegetarian or has specific food allergies. Some of the products they mention specifically are pretty cost-effective, as well.

Pretty reasonable recommendations on how to increase calorie intake after surgery without confounding the point with a bunch of diet talk.

I likely won't add anything else about post-surgical nutrition unless it's a similarly high quality source (though I am making a tag for it), but even if I don't, this is a pretty robust resource that probably doesn't need supplemented.

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Clothing - Robes (Part 1)

Robes might be one of the most important items for top surgery, but it ended up so far down my list because, well, looking for robes sucks. It sucks a lot. If you're over an XL, apparently you don't own a robe? Or want one? And if you're over a 2X, it's a nightmare.

I am going to stick to robes you would use for lounging, as a "bathrobe" made of terrycloth is a different can of worms entirely and probably not how you are intending to use it if you're looking at a top surgery blog.

It seems like the place to start is with Amazon's plus size waffle robe, a cotton/poly blend that comes in a limited set of solid colors and is available in up to 6X in men's and up to a 2X in women's (The women's robes have listings up to 7X, but nothing above a 2X has been available in quite some time).

Alexander Del Rossa is a pretty popular brand of sleepwear/robes that sells their full range of sizes on their website as well as on amazon. The hooded bathrobe is fleece and comes up to an 8X in several solid colors and patterns. The store's website is pretty upfront about the available sizes for various items, with most robes available in up to 4X and 6X to 8X available in some styles. Their sleepwear selection isn't nearly as robust (it looks pretty typical for a lot of clothing, mostly to XL for women with a couple to 2X and most men's stuff to 3X), but the robe pricing isn't terrible.

Unlike a lot of my other clothing recs, I haven't personally bought either of these (I already have multiple robes and neither of these are what I'd buy to replace what I have), but they come with a lot of user reviews both on amazon and in places like subreddits for plus-size fashion, so for the pricepoint/etc I think they are quite good options that don't require a huge investment.

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Now that I've been signed up for Bookbub for about six months, I have some opinions on whether signing up is worth it versus not having an account.

Pros of having an account:

You can make a wishlist to track price changes and it will alert you if your wishlisted books go on sale

You can also follow specific authors and get alerts for their books

You can save your preferred genres on the sidebar instead of putting them in individually when browsing books.

Cons of having an account:

They email you really frequently. Really, really frequently. They email you when you look at a book and choose not to purchase it, even. I attached it to one of my alternate emails, which you'll likely have to do if you sign up.

So I think if you're someone who knows what they are after and wants to purchase books on sale, they've got some tools to help you with that if your storefront of choice isn't able to help. If my math is even remotely correct, approximately 2.5% of the books I have purchased for my kindle were on sale (as opposed to free), so the feeling of being tracked across their website and amazon seems a lot bigger than the usefulness of an account. I'm debating logging out and never signing back in again.

Since I wrote the original post, I've also discovered another website that I'm using when I look for free ebooks: FreeBooksy

FreeBooksy has a better organizational system for genres than BookBub, and they very clearly indicate what day things were posted as free. FreeBooksy has fewer categories overall, though, and some of the ones that are missing are extremely handy, including a LGBTQ+ category, "Black Stories & Experiences" (their wording, not mine), substantially more nonfiction categories, and some Christian subcategories.

They tend to have a slightly different selection of books than BookBub as well, so I am using both of them instead of replacing one with the other. It sounds like a lot, since I check my wishlist for sales AND the top 100 romance on Amazon AND both these websites, but it only takes a few minutes a day.

I'm hoping in the future that they both will create subcategories for Christian and/or Sweet and/or Clean romances, in the interest of both people who DO want to search for those in particular and people who want to exclude them from searches.

Part 3 Entertainment - Books Part 1

I know I said I wouldn't have anything for the entertainment section, but I figure it might be a nice change of pace from my other content.

I don't have a lot of hobbies that I think are interesting or relatable, and your mileage will vary, but I DO think both recovery and the waiting around of the appointment phase is easier with a book or two.

Obviously, your library is a great resource (though I'd be terrified of leaving a library book at the doctor's office), and if you want to get books for free some other way, people on the internet move fast and will have better resources on where to get free books than I do. But I do have two places to get books that I think are hidden gems:

For ebooks: BookBub

Bookbub is a legal site for free and discounted ebooks via publisher discounting schemes. It operates across a variety of devices and bookselling platforms (so you're not inherently locked into amazon or apple books or a specific branded device inherently.) and lets you sort to see specific genres only.

You don't need an account or to sign up for their mailing list to use it (though I think you can get more personalized recommendations with an account, past that I have no idea what having an account does since they are not the selling platform, they basically just advertise the sales).

For paper books: Hamilton Book

There's a lot of places on the internet to buy remaindered (new but unsold) books, but Hamilton (formerly Edward R Hamilton) is my favorite. If you're looking for specific books (especially semi-recent releases), you're very much in the wrong place. But if you have the time and energy to browse what they DO have (which definitely does have some popular authors and series), you can find some really good books for some really good prices. I've gotten new books for as little as $1.95 via Hamilton, and they charge a flat $4 shipping fee. My family has been buying from them since the 90s, when you could only do it via the catalog.

I will add that, back in the 90s, Hamilton made most of their money selling shopworn (lightly damaged) new books, and some of them still are. The overwhelming majority (probably 90+%) of what they sell now is remaindered and is in perfect condition, but I have occasionally gotten books that had torn dust jackets or stains. If you're giving the books as a gift and want to be assured it will look picture-perfect, Hamilton may not be the place to buy, but if you're okay with a single-digit percentage being damaged but readable, you won't find a better deal anywhere.

For some perspective, I think I bought 20 or 30 books from them in the past 18 months, and I got ONE paperback book that had something sticky on the cover and ONE hardback with a torn dust jacket, and both were last chance sales so likely all of the stock left was damaged. Everything else looks perfect, other than the remainder mark.

If books aren't your thing, they also sell remaindered CDs, DVDs, and Blu Rays, as well as having coloring books and puzzle books. I managed to pick up a pair of puzzle books for one of the guys that I've put aside for recovery for a few dollars each.

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This is available attached to another post (and I linked to it on the masterpost but not the version of that post that's being reblogged, naturally), but since I have a lot of new eyes on this blog suddenly I thought it would be helpful to draw even more attention to this document.

tumblr user wrenseyeview attached this document to a reblog of one of my early posts, and it's genuinely one of the most thorough documents I've come across in all of my research so far. It starts all the way from starting therapy and HRT and goes all the way to wrenseyeview's revision surgery in excruciating detail, including final costs, all items purchased, insurance documentation, and a list of medications to stop 2 weeks prior to surgery.

I'm so grateful to wrenseyeview for sharing this with me, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't lost in the shuffle as I reorganized my posts.

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To put a slightly finer point on it: one of the ONLY reasons that I started this blog (besides being mad at a handful of things I'd seen repeatedly in the early stages of my research) was because I hadn't (and still haven't, roughly a year after making this blog) seen anyone talking in-depth about any of the stuff I was actually good at or interested in.

There's tons of help if you just want a checklist of stuff to buy, or if you mostly need help with navigating the surgeon/insurance, clothing options if you can wear an XL or 1X as a super baggy fit, or figuring how to split up your chores while you recover.

But nobody seemed to have ANY insights into plus-sized clothing at all (even though you need to get bigger-than-normal clothing to accommodate yourself post surgery), or skincare stuff (even something pretty practical like home care bathwipes vs camping bathwipes vs baby wipes), or snacks, or ways to entertain yourself that aren't watching netflix or listening to podcasts.

So I very much wasn't qualified to operate a blog people actually look at, or good at organization, but I can look at lip balms for 6 hours and write notes on it, so surely that counts for something?

I feel almost bad if you came to my blog because seeing a "Masterpost" made you assume I was some well-organized and dedicated blogger who had been working diligently on posts for years and had tons of content.

The blog had finally just barely crossed the threshold of unmanageable without better tags and a navigational post, some of those tags only have a single post right now, and I sunk multiple hours into reorganizing posts as I put the Masterpost together because they were so incredibly inconsistent (the one remaining colon in a post heading instead of a dash is a bugged post that I can't edit and it is haunting me every night) due to the fact that I've sometimes gone months without the energy or inspiration to put a post together.

I've said it before, but I sometimes wonder why I'm doing this as I've come across a lot of people who have done similar things with a lot more dedication and thoughtfulness compared to whatever this is.

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I feel almost bad if you came to my blog because seeing a "Masterpost" made you assume I was some well-organized and dedicated blogger who had been working diligently on posts for years and had tons of content.

The blog had finally just barely crossed the threshold of unmanageable without better tags and a navigational post, some of those tags only have a single post right now, and I sunk multiple hours into reorganizing posts as I put the Masterpost together because they were so incredibly inconsistent (the one remaining colon in a post heading instead of a dash is a bugged post that I can't edit and it is haunting me every night) due to the fact that I've sometimes gone months without the energy or inspiration to put a post together.

I've said it before, but I sometimes wonder why I'm doing this as I've come across a lot of people who have done similar things with a lot more dedication and thoughtfulness compared to whatever this is.

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Masterpost

Top Surgery Categories

Part 0: Introduction

About This Organizational System

Part 1: Resources

By Type:

Nutrition Resources

Prepping References

Recovery References

Scar Care References

Shopping References

Surgery References

By Source:

Blog posts

Reddit threads

Strategist

wrenseyeview's google doc

Part 2: Clothing

Flannel shirts

Hoodies

Pajamas

Robes

Part 3: Entertainment

Apps

Books

Part 4: Quality of Life (No posts so far)

Part 5: Personal Care

Skincare

Part 6: Snacks (No posts so far)

Part 7: Miscellaneous

Other Tags

ICTD Responds

ICTD Miscellaneous

Tumblr User Info

General Surgery Resources

Mastectomy Resources for Cis Women

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Do you have a masterpost of all your posts? trying to find specific things:(

I don't, as of right this moment, but I'll get started working on one!

I'm probably going to have to revise some of the tags/posts as I go (and I have some things going on in my personal life that are, to put it mildly, somewhat disruptive this week that I won't bore you with the details), so please be patient with me and I will get something posted that will be easier to navigate than tumblr's busted search function as soon as I can.

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Part 3 Entertainment - Books Part 2

I finally(!) learned about Stuff Your Kindle Day (SYKD), which is a bit of a misnomer as it's

Not amazon- or kindle-exclusive

Multiple times throughout the year

but it's a day where indie publishers/author promo groups all sell free books at once, adding up to dozens or hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of free books at a time, for a single day. If you were thinking about getting some ebooks to help pass the time at consults/after surgery, it wouldn't take very many out of those large number of free books to have plenty of reading material. I've been able to confirm that, outside of the US, this is also available in Canada, the UK, and Australia. Other countries may be participating as well, but I'm struggling to confirm one way or another, and the same book may not be free in all regions.

It's worth mentioning that Kindle, Apple, Nook, and Kobo all have free apps if you don't have an ereader (or would rather use a tablet than have a dedicated ereader), and that all of these storefronts are, to my knowledge, participants in all of these events. I will say that I was initially hesitant to get an ereader and waited a long time to get one, but I don't regret it. I have been, in particular, VERY vocal in recommending them to people who struggle to read paper books because you can change the font/font size/margin to make them more accessible, including using the OpenDyslexia font.

SYKD originally was romance-exclusive, and the "official" STKD events are still heavily romance-focused, but there are other publishers and groups coordinating similar, smaller events in other genres ("Book Blast" seems to be the current popular name for discount events not associated with the original group running SYKD).

If you know me at all, I am a pretty prolific category romance reader (especially at places like the doctor's office, where a romance novel is a nice time-waster that doesn't require wifi and allows me to not be fully immersed while I listen for my name to be called), so I'm quite excited for the official announcement for STKD, likely happening in March. In 2023, for some measure of comparison, SYKD happened on March 31, June 30, September 20, and December 27.

Romance Bookworms is the home of the "original" SYKD and allows you to sign up for email alerts (or substack) when they announce the dates for 2024, which are a closely guarded secret. SYKD is the largest of events by FAR with about 2,000 books available in the December 2023 event. Romance is the primary genre, but other books in other genres are free for SYKD as well. Several sources indicate that Romance Bookworms has sections on their SYKD listings specifically for BIPOC authors and for books that feature LGBTQ+ protagonists.

Romance Book Lovers is an unrelated group that is hosting a Romance Book Blast, with the next listed date as April 23.

The Cozy Mystery Book Club has coordinated several Cozy Mystery Book Blasts in the past, including in January of 2024, with the next event listed publicly as April 25.

Witchy Bookworms coordinates the Witchy Book Blast, which ran last on January 27 and already has the next date listed publicly as April 27.

Fantasy Book Dragons just ran their first "Stuff Your Kindle with Fantasy" event in January and have mentioned plans for another event in June with no date announced yet.

YA Bookworms runs a similar YA-focused event, the last one I can find info on happened on October 7. They also have a substack.

Terrify Your Tablet seems to run on October 31 only each year (This is the same event as Spook Your Kindle; they changed the name to clarify that it's not amazon-exclusive).

Thriller Blast appears to be a similar event for mystery, suspense, and thriller books, with a similar hook of waiting on an email announcement for dates and no clear indication on the landing page when the last event was held. I also wasn't able to confirm anyone participating it in via reddit, or anywhere else, so your guess is as good as mine.

Romance Audiobookworms also runs a similar event for audiobooks, Stuff Your Earbuds, with an event announced for spring but the date still unannounced, just like SYKD. This is still a relatively new event, unlike SYKD.

There's a lot of whining online about the quality of the books available for these events (especially SYKD, which I'm sure is unrelated to the fact that it's mostly romance and the general feelings most people have about romance as a genre), but the fact of the matter is that books available on kindle, especially for free, vary wildly in quality all the time no matter what. I've quit reading a lot of duds in the year I've owned an ereader, but I've read a lot of things I liked, too, and I assume the offerings for these events are a similar mixed bag.

Considering how many new events have cropped up in the past 18 months or so, I'll be excited to see in any new author groups decide to run similar promotions in the future or whether more groups decide to align with SYKD.