[NEDenise]

Hi Bonita!
I had my DIEP flap done at the University of Pennsylvania, in October. My breasts are healing nicely...still not quite like the originals, but the surgeon says it takes 18 months-2 years for everything to "soften up" and look natural again.
The part that's troublesome for me, is my abdomen. Believe me when I tell you that I love having a flat tummy again...but...

My abdominal incision has been a pain since the day of surgery. The healing time for it, and the amount of pain involved were both much worse than I had anticipated.

In fact, I'm having surgery again in April to remove scar tissue that has formed and interferes with waistbands of any kind. It feels like I'm smuggling a dozen large pebbles under my skin!

And, I still get fluid build up and numbness between that incision and my new breasts. (which BTW are still quite numb as well). But they match, and look about the same as my original ones in all my clothes.

Having said all that...I'm still very glad I had the surgery...but I wish someone had told me it was no walk in the park.

It was an 11 hour surgery (because I had my mastectomy at the same time), followed by 6 days in a special "step-down unit", not quite ICU, but lots of attention and people checking on the new breasts' blood flow every hour. I also had a pain medicine pump for the abdominal incision for the first 2 days...and I was very grateful for it.

My breasts were fine...no pain, good blood flow to the transplanted tissue. Then, home with 4 drainage bulbs (I had both sides done, so the finished products would match from the get-go).

I'd say I was back up and out of the house about 10 days later, but I couldn't drive for about a month because of the drains and pain meds...which BTW I needed, at least once every day for about a month...and I'm not a pansy when it comes to pain. My abdomen HURT...mostly at night, because the fluid built up throughout the day!

As far as insurance is concerned, I was told that I was entitled by law to whatever recon surgery my doctors and I thought was appropriate...and that my insurance was obligated to pay for it. I'm not sure whether that's a state or federal law, but it seems worth a check. And, your AFLAC should pay travel expenses, right?

I posted my experiences after surgery, here on the forum, but I can't get the link to post here for you to click on. If you search "DIEP" it should pop up.

If you have any more specific questions, please don't hesitate to PM me. Some of the other ladies have had this surgery too. Hopefully, they'll chime in with their thoughts too.

Bottom line...not a walk in the park...but I'm glad I did it.
Be well!
Denise