[norkdo]

Dearest Nancy,
I have had computer problems...no laptop for two months. Today I logged on to my new laptop and the first thing I did today on my laptop is catching up with your recon. I howled! You are a riot.

I feel awful abt your 12 hour surgery tho!! !I am writing the identical account of my Sept 17 2012 recon operation to Denise but in case I screwed up the private messaging system, and also to say hello to all of you kind warm women, like Amy, whom I also consider my friends, here is me catching you all up on me.

Here is my account:


I had a silicone implant put into my good breast, with a dif surgeon standing next to my plastic surgeon and an old revered surgeon, retiring, supervising these two adorable boy geniuses. Adore my surgeons. Right before I went under, my Plastic Surgeon, (PS) said "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's get this plane off the ground" and I asked him later bout it and he said they were just teasing the anaesthesia people for talking like they were in an airport control room.

The silicone was chosen by virtue of being half the size of my real breast, which weighed 8/10ths of a litre. Ridiculous to have that slapping around on my chest for the past year. Grrrrrr.....

The PS chose a 420 ml silicone and wrapped it in the skin left dangling there after they cut the end off the breast and dug out the food craved by HER2 cancer cells (i.e. breast tissue).

An hour prior to surgery my PS and his resident came to me in scrubs to draw on my existing boob and he told me the other cute surgeon is now offering a nipple sparing version of the left boob silicone insertion operation. I simply asked PS his opinion as sensation was not as high a priority, I had decided, after long consideration (tough to give up never feeling anything sexual again on the top half of my body, believe you me.) PS said "I will give you excellent looking nipples, yes, yes, without the elevation, simply tattoes, yes, yes, I know."

In addition, during the insertion of the doubly-wrapped silicone on my good, left side, the PS worked for hours to untether my mastectomy scar from last summer from the back of the wall, so he could slide an expander under it. He only put 150 ml water into it.

Nevertheless I woke up screaming in a panic attack in the recovery room, nobody around that I loved, to hold my hand...my stupid idea, thinking I was braver than i was....it is not like people didnt offer....how wonderful were the two nurses. "Hold my hand!! To the other nurse: "Don't let go of my hand!" To the first one: "YES. KEEP RUBBING MY SHOULDER" To the other one: "NO. DON'T GO!!!| Finally I started breathing normally after they managed to convince me.. ("You're shouting at me!! Why are you being mean!!) All of this as if from a spoiled twelve year old child. And the "mean" one understanding the morphine coming out of my speech, and lowering her voice, becoming my substitute mother, so longed for throughout this awful journey........

Anyway all was great for a week, then the silicone breast cuts became infected or whatever and the whole front of the breast turned black.....fell off, then green and yellow. A month later here I am. It is still sticky, yellow, slough under bandages that need changing by the Victorian Order of Nurses (WeCare) every two days.

The PS says this is why he double wrapped the silicone in my old big bad 8/10ths of a litre breast skin. In case i lost one layer of skin i would have more skin under it. "You just think of everything," I joked to him. He is nonplussed abt the yellow goo still pouring out of it. (necrosis). "There is plenty of healthy pink skin coming in behind the dead skin so we didn't even need the second layer of skin." So I am good, fortunate, lucky, etc and excited bout my new boobs. Sad about losing nipples, like all of us. While you sleep your sheets, throughout your life, as a woman have brushed over you and given you pleasant dreams. Over it now. I'm good with the trade off. (parallel boobs, etc)

I went through bad depression bout after about three weeks of bi-daily bandage changes by the nurses, and i should slap myself i am so lucky that the nurse service is free here in canada, but am crawling out of that stupidity now and i just got the right expander inflated yesterday by 80 mls. All by myself like a big girl.