Day
Forty-Nine – Thursday
Randy and I spent a
good deal of the day speaking with surgeons. We learned more about breast
surgery and reconstruction than we ever wanted to know. Who thought that
keeping the patient well informed was a good idea? I mean really. Tell me I
need this operation, do it, and when I wake up, tell me how to take care of it.
My head is so full, it’s going to explode.
First we went to
see the Plastic Surgeon. Nice person who loves what he does and comes highly
recommended. And yet, I was crying when I left the office. It all became so
very real.
Here’s what we
learned:
1.
I won’t be ready for a reconstruction
immediately after my mastectomy. I will have to wait 2 to 3 months. As of
today, I’d be willing to wait for a while. Not looking forward to additional
surgeries. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking, but it wasn’t any of
this.
2.
There are two kinds of reconstruction. One is
the traditional which goes something like this (in laymen’s terms) – I have
surgery to insert an expander. The expander requires several visits to the
surgeon so he can poke a needle with solution into my now removed breasts and
expand them until they have reached the proper size. Then I go back into
surgery and have these removed and the silicone implants put in. Then he may
want to tweek them so they are perfect. On the short end – two more surgeries.
On the long end, implants may form scar tissue and may become hard and the
whole process starts again. The second form of reconstruction takes more time
in surgery, only one doctor in Tucson does it, and recovery time is longer. It’s
called a flap and here’s how it works – they take the fat and tissue from my
abdomen and move it up to form my breasts. A tummy tuck and breast
reconstruction all in one. Surgery time is 8 to 10 hours, 3 to 4 days in the
hospital, and 6 to 8 weeks of recovery time.
Then we had pie at
Village Inn.
Next stop, the
surgeon who is doing the Double Mastectomy, where we both learned that I will
lose not only my breasts, but my nipples. It’s all breast tissue and the reason
for a Mastectomy is to get rid of breast tissue so breast cancer won’t come
back again. Plus, if he left them there, they wouldn’t have any sensation
anyway and may be all catty wompus so that the plastic surgeon will remove them
anyway. We also learned so many new and very unfun things like….
1.
Well, the nipple thing. Randy asked what they do
about the look of nipples. I think the doc said something about a tattoo, so
Randy said I could be rather creative with that – Like flowers or pink ribbons
or something – but I really don’t think that’s what he meant. I think the
surgeon does it so it looks like an ariola. Something to talk with the plastic
surgeon about later.
2.
I will have drains to get rid of fluid that will
form. I will need to take care of these drains for about 10-14 days or until I
stop draining. Anyone who knows me knows that things like cleaning up vomit or
a broken egg makes me very sick. So, this should be all kinds of fun.
3.
There will be no external stitches only internal
ones. Who knew? I thought staples or stitches that need to be removed, but no.
The only stitches I will have are those holding in the tubes.
4.
They will send me home with one – just one –
camisole. I will have to buy more. They have pouches to hold the tubes so no
one can see them and so they are not just dangling around. Nice to know that if
you invite me over, you won’t have to see them and if I never mentioned it, you
wouldn’t even know.
5.
The surgeon says he is leaving more skin so they
can reconstruct later. This means I will be all lumpy instead of smooth.
6.
The doctor wants to do this at a Surgery Center
and I will go home after the surgery. He says patients recover better in their
own environment. Okie dokie. For some reason, that little piece of news made me
very nervous. But the surgeon prefers it because he gets to chose his own team
and he has worked with them thousands of times and he feels more comfortable in
that environment. So, I’m reading the website about the surgical center and
they want my co-pay up front when I check in. I need to call them.
7.
I have to have an injection before the surgery
so that the doctor can trace from my lump to my lymph nodes so he can cut out
the closest lymph nodes to have them looked at. And chemo is still a
possibility if the cancer has spread, but the lymph nodes are not palpable now
and that is a good sign.
I can still change
my mind and do a single mastectomy, but with my cancer history, it may only be
delaying the inevitable. Plus, the plastic surgeon said that every single
patient who had a double mastectomy was more happy with the reconstruction
results over a woman who had a single.
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