Post-surgery

Hello,
I just wanted to send a quick update to let everyone know I'm doing great. The plastic surgeon said he was happy with the surgery. I am all bandaged up and won't be able to see the results, however, until our followup appointment on Wednesday.

My right arm actually feels better than it did before I went in to surgery (it felt like the expander was pushing on a nerve, and since the implants are softer it makes sense that I would no longer have that problem).

The pain is not too bad - on my left side the surgeon had to do more "work" with the pocket, so it hurts a bit more but I am feeling pretty good. There's no doubt that I'm certainly doing a lot better than after the last surgery.

I will probably post again after my followup, but I just wanted to say hello in the meantime. Thanks for all the well wishes!

brief update

We just heard from the doctor a little while ago. All went as well as was expected and Megan is resting comfortably in a recovery room. She'll be there under observation for the next 1-2 hours and if she continues as expected we'll be able to bring her home then. Great news!

Dr. Belichick and the winning drive

I was fortunate enough to observe the genius Dr. Belichick draft another game winning play on Megan's chest, once again. I have a really good feeling about this play which began execution a little after 11:45 AM today. Here is Megan shortly before her plastic surgeon brought her back to the field for "kickoff".




Keep the champagne on ice and cue the duck boats. Tune in later for game highlights.

Surgery today

Today I have surgery at about 11:45 AM to exchange my tissue expanders for permanent implants. I'm VERY READY.

Rusty will probably post an update from the hospital to let everyone know how it went. I can't wait!

Introducing...

Two new additions to the family. They are soft, cuddly, and like to be pet.

No, they are not my new boobs, they are my new kitties ;-)

My sister informed me yesterday that if someone was only reading my blog and didn't know me in real life, they wouldn't know that we recently got cats (except for the fact that I wrote about herding kittens yesterday). So, I thought I would post a little introduction and review our pre-op consult with the plastic surgeon. I had to tie the two in together somehow.

Poster Nutbag

Reba

We adopted the two little kitties in January (right after we got back from our New Years' trip to Chicago) from the Worcester Animal Rescue League shelter. They were about 6 months old, and although they aren't related, they were brought to the shelter around the same day. These two little bundles of joy have really made themselves at home in our house and I can no longer imagine our lives without them. I know, it's totally sappy and cheesy, but we don't have children so we have to have some sort of a substitute. :-)

Anyway, I had some basic pre-op testing today and a mini consult with my plastic surgeon. The surgery should be much easier than the last one. It's only expected to last two hours, and I don't have to stay overnight.

We also got to see real silicone implants today, and that was pretty neat. My surgeon explained how the implant works. I didn't realize this, but if you cut it with a knife, it's not liquid inside. It would keep its shape. It was nice and squishy - much better than the "turtle shells" I currently have residing under my pectoral muscles. They come in different profiles - small, mid, and high. We're going with "high" because the implant is going under my muscle and I don't really have much shape right now. When he described the difference, that sounded like it would give me the best-looking result.

He ordered 4 different sizes (anywhere from 400-650 CC's). During the surgery, he'll remove the tissue expanders and replace them with sterile sizers to determine which ones he ultimately wants to place. Then, he'll open the package for the right implant and voila! He will use the same incision as the last surgery to minimize the look of the scars, and since my radiated side is a little more contracted, he has to adjust the pocket a bit. That means cutting so that it more closely matches the other one. Right now my left side is higher than my right side (I'm pretty lopsided if you look closely) and a bit smaller. That should be fixed.

After the surgery, we'll have some followups, but everything should be fine unless we're not happy with the cosmetic result. Some time after that, I can choose to go for "nipple reconstruction." OOOOOH. :-) During a mastectomy they usually take the nipples, too (since it's breast tissue, and cancer can grow there). Most people don't know that or don't think of that. I haven't really decided what I'll do about that, yet, but it's not something that has to happen anytime soon. I'm just excited to be getting real fake boobs.

New Boobs!

Hi everyone. I thought now was a good time to give an update, because I have a date for my next surgery. I'm supposed to be working from home today (and I AM, I swear...) but we have contractors installing new windows and doors and I've been having to corral the kitties away from where they're working. Ever heard the phrase, "it's like herding kittens"? Yeah, that's what I'm doing today ;-)

So, anyway, I've been enduring my tissue expander fills for the last couple of months. Each one has been worse than the previous one. A lot of people have asked me how I'm doing, and how it feels. Ugh, it's far worse than any muscle pain I've ever felt. Surprisingly, the chest area doesn't hurt the worst - it's my back that's really been hurting (probably because my shoulders are hunched to ease the stretching in my pectoral muscles).

Just as a refresher... I have inflatable implants underneath my chest muscles, with a metal port under my skin at the top of my breast mound. Every 3 weeks or so, I go to the plastic surgeon to get them filled. He uses a weird magnet thing to locate the port and pokes a needle through it. Then he puts anywhere between 35 and 80 cc's of fluid in the implant, until I start to feel pressure. My boobs literally grow before our eyes :-)

It doesn't hurt right away. After a few hours I start to feel a burning in my back/shoulder area. Then it feels all knotted and twisted. I have to sleep in a reclined position for the first night or so because sleeping flat on my back really hurts. Ever since the last 2 fills, I've been uncomfortable pretty much 24/7. At night, my arm goes dead (not quite numb, but it feels heavy and hurting). So, I wake up every so often to change positions (but there are not really many positions I can tolerate!). During the day, it's very difficult to use my arms to prop myself up. It's not difficult lifting things, but for some reason the motion of pushing up with my arms is pretty difficult.

My right side seems to hurt the most. This is really strange, because that's the side that wasn't radiated. It might be because the muscle is softer and more flexible, so it seems that the implant has shifted a bit toward the armpit area. Seriously, I feel so broken :-(

So, anyway, you can see why I have been VERY anxious to get these things out of me. During my last fill, my plastic surgeon said that we could schedule the surgery soon. A week later (which was just this past Tuesday), I spoke to his secretary and she informed me that he had a cancellation, and he would be ready to do the surgery on March 30th!!

I have my pre-op testing tomorrow. My doctor informed us that this surgery should go a lot more easily than the last one. It should only take about 2 hours (versus the 6+ hours of the last one!) and best of all, I won't even have to stay overnight! Woohoo! Therefore, I think my chances of contracting C. Diff again are probably much less. I've also read that a lot of women actually feel better soon after surgery because the "turtle-shell" expanders are gone and replaced with soft implants.

This one is coming up a lot more quickly than I expected, but I'm really happy about it. I was thinking about this the other day and I realized that between my diagnosis, treatment, and first round of reconstruction, it's been just under a year! Wow.

Note that I say "first round of reconstruction". I'll post more on what I mean by that later. After my meeting with the plastic surgeon tomorrow, I'll have a better idea of what the different stages will look like. But the most important part is happening in less than 2 weeks!