Julieta, would it be callous of me to say you look absolutely gorgeous on your pic? I have NEVER (okay, maybe 25 yrs ago....in a one-piece) looked as sexy as you do in your bikini top pic?
My plastic surgeon is kind of a boy wonder genius guy with an awesomely great reputation. I was asking the same question you are asking when I was referred to him by another doctor with the rave reviews.
You will find all my posts here somewhere when I was asking same questions you are right now.
So. I went to him last May. I had finished 30 rads in April.
here is what I learned. By the way I continue to have faith in my excellent Plastic Surgeon.
1. Six months is needed after last radiation as rads continue to work deep inside and might destroy the new breast. (ironically he did mine 5 mos after instead of 6).
2. I asked "diep or tramflap or silicone or salt water or....." and the answer was this:
(which i think is awesome and shows how smart and experienced he is
3. "If you look at the research, some recons fail. (result of radiation still working, or infection, or skin being too thin to regenerate after infection...etc etc) Statistically. A Plastic Surgeon has to therefore keep in mind these potential failures which X percentage of the time (twenty? can't recall, but high enough) occur. I have to therefore leave in the future an operation which can be done after the potential failure. In your case, the tramflap or diep...the abdomen muscle etc is an operation I do not wish to COMMENCE reconstructing you with, but is an op i wish to leave on reserve in case the first operation fails. If I start with it, we cannot do the silicone/salt water afterwards. If I start with expander (salt water)/changed up to silicone implant, then afterwards, if that fails, we can always do the diep/tramflap. Not the other way round. If the tramflap is the first operation and fails....you're screwed."
4. By the way, people here like Chrisy? (forgive if wrong) told me you can just leave your expanders in for life and never swap em up for silicone. You do not have to decide before the surgery.
5. My PS (plastic surgeon) did not give me an option (thankfully as he had a brilliant plan to prevent further problems in his head) about choosing the size of implant. He chose an implant on my skin-sparing, non cancerous, alternate breast side HALF THE SIZE OF MY OLD REAL BREAST. On the morning of surgery he was drawing on it, showing the senior resident what kind of wrapping of the silicone implant he was going to do. Turns out he CHOSE THE HALF SIZE IMPLANT so he could double wrap it in skin~. The reason is that if the skin dies off from the frequent post-reconstruction infections that occur, THERE IS STILL ANOTHER WRAP OF SKIN AROUND THE NEW SILICONE!!
So consider asking for a double wrapping of your skin around the new silicone if that is what you are getting.
Also, if choosing skin-sparing on your "good" side, consider nipple sparing too. My nipple, on my non-cancerous side, where i still had a breast, a year after the mastectomy of my cancerous breast, was not aesthetically, at 52 years of age and me being overweight and all something I wished to duplicate. I simply asked the PS what he would recommend, and he said "I will give you far better looking nipples than you had before" so I take him at his word.
Somebody on here recommended a thread on the sadness pre-recon of losing breast sensation, not necessarily as a woman having a sexual partner, but even if you are celibate, the sadness of losing nipple sensation altogether while you sleep ...the sheets giving you nice dreams etc...and that is an excellent thread to read. Yes you will have to grieve that ahead of time, so start that early cos I did and I got that out of the way, and am seriously no longer in any grief about that at all, but you need to go through it before you come out of it i think. the thread can be found on breastcancer.org and you can search "nipples" there. It is completely frank about a taboo topic. helps tho. I am just saying I do not know if by doing a nipple-sparing op on your single existing breast you will have any sensation or not. I was offered one on the morning of my surgery by the surgeon that does the digging out of breast tissue on the good breast. The Plastic Surgeon (the one you go find and meet with several times prior to the operation) is the one I consulted about this offer given by the other.
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fall 2008: mammo of rt breast worrisome so am asked to redo mammo and have ultrasound of rt breast.I delay it til january 2009 and the results are "no cancer in rt breast. phew."
found plum sized lump in right breast the day before my dad died: April 17th 2011. saw it in mirror, while i was wearing a top, examining my figure after losing 10 lbs on dr. bernstein diet.
diagnosed may 10 2011
mast/lymphectomy: june 7 2011, 5/20 cancerous nodes.
stage 3a before radiation oncologist during our first mtg on july 15th says he found cancer on the lymph node of my breast bone. Now stage 3b.
her2+++, EN-, PN-. Rt brst tumors:3 at onset, 4.5 cm was the big one
chemos: 3fec's followed by 3 taxotere, total of 18 wks chemo.
sept: halfway thru chemo the mastectomy scar decides to open and ooze pus. (not healed before chemo) eventually with canasten powder sent by friend in ny (illegal in canada) it heals.
radiations:although scheduled to begin 25 january 2012, I am so terrified by it (rads cause other cancers) I don't start til february, miss a bunch, reschedule them all and finally finish 35 rads mid april. reason for 7 extra atop the 28 scheduled is that when i first met my rads oncologist he said he saw a tumor on the lymph node of my breastbone. extra 7 are special kind of beam used for that lymphnode. rads onc tells me nobody ever took so long to do rads so he cannot speak for effectiveness. trials had been done only on consecutive days so......we'll see.....
10 mos of herceptin started 6 wks into chemo. canadian onc says 10 mos is just as effective as the full yr recommended by dr. slamon......so we'll see..completed july 2012.
Sept 18 2012: reconstruction and 3 drains. fails. i wear antibiotic pouch on my job for two months and have 60 consecutive days visiting a nursing centre where they apply burn victims' silver paper and clean the oozing infection daily. silicone leaks out daily. plastic surgeon in caribbean. emergency dept wont remove "his" work. He finally appears and orders me in into an emergency removal of implant. I make him promise no drains and I get my way. No infection as a result. Chest looks like a map of Brazil. Had a perfectly good left breast on Sept 17th but surgeon wanted to "save another woman an operation" ? so he had crashed two operations together on my left breast, foregoing the intermediary operation where you install an expander. the first surgeon a year earlier had flat out refused to waste five hours on his feet taking both boobs. flat out refusal. between the canadian health system saving money and both these asses, I got screwed. who knows when i can next get enough time off work (i work for myself and have no substitute when my husband is on contract) to get boobs again. arrrgh.
I have a blog where I document this trip and vent.
www.nora'scancerblog.blogspot.com . I stopped the blog before radiation. I think the steroids made me more angry and depressed and i just hated reading it anymore
Re: reconstruction
Hybrid Mode
