Sunday, October 18, 2009

Immediate Reconstruction

Mastectomy with immediate reconstruction is the name of my surgery.   Immediate reconstruction is a lie deceiving term.  Unless immediate means a year, of course.

What will happen to me on Wednesday is the general surgeon will do a mastectomy.  Then a plastic surgeon will come in and put what is called an "expander" in that area under the muscle.  It will still be flat at the point and I'll need to stuff my bra with socks, like a 12  year old.

I will go in monthly for "fills" in which the plastic surgeon injects saline through my skin into the expander to stretch what's left of my skin out.  He'll overexpand it, so at some point my right "breast" will be bigger than the left, and then when it's the proper size, he'll put a silicone implant in.  At that point, my left side will be lifted and implanted as well to give me as much symmetry as possible.

I can't tell you how many times I've made fun of skinny Hollywood starlets with those big, fake, boob bubbles on their chests.  Now I will be one.

Be careful what you make fun of, it might come back to bite you.

They make fake nipples, "fipples" out of other parts of your skin.  Apparently, they can even do this out of parts of your hoo-haw but I can't think about that now.  Then they tattoo the areolas on.

I think I'm going to ask for my tattoo to be shaped like a hand flipping the bird.  FU Cancer.
Posted by Ann aka ButDoctorIHatePink at 1:54 PM

4 comments:

  1. ArlaOctober 19, 2009 at 4:59 PM

    Hello, my friend. I wish I could be with you when you go into surgery. It is scary, but I promise that when you wake up Ann, you're going to be happy that the cancer is out of your body. And you might be pleasantly surprised - I can only speak of my expanders, but they were not flat, they each had about 150-200 cc saline in them.
    This is indeed a detour that none of us expect, but YOU ARE an asskicker and I have no doubt that you will get up, dress up, and show up.....just as I do. Find a reason to laugh and smile every single day. Keeping you in my prayers.....I will be in chemo while you are in surgery - I will take my little bible with me and I will be reading to you from afar....Godspeed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ann aka ButDoctorIHatePinkOctober 20, 2009 at 9:09 AM

    Great advice Arla, thank you. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. ClariceakOctober 20, 2009 at 1:01 PM

    Here's to sailing through surgery without any of the omas - Heratoma, Seroma or the little known FUComa.

    I thought drains were gross, but carrying my own little pus filled pockets under my arms is worse.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ann aka ButDoctorIHatePinkOctober 20, 2009 at 1:20 PM

    I'm sorry Clarice.Nothing has gone right for me during this either, so I fully expect an "oma" of some sort.

    ReplyDelete

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