Sunday, June 10, 2012

Please excuse my chest its under reconstruction...

Its been a while since my last post... Nate and I met with the plastic surgeon on the 29th of May and discussed our options as far as reconstruction go. I was happy to learn that the tram flap option that I had been planning for was an option available to me. The Doctor also gave us the option of doing the expanders followed by implants. This is the option Nate would like me to do. At this point I think we're kind of at a stand still agreeing to disagree. We'll have to make a decision in the next several weeks as we meet with the Dr. again in August to let him know what we have decided.
The surgery that I would like to have involves cutting the fat from my stomach and a muscle from each side of my "six pack" (which has never existed), and then moving that up to form breast by attaching the vessels and muscle. It would leave me with a football shaped scare on my breast, and a scare on my stomach similar to what a c-section scare looks like. Recovery time, 3-5 days in the hospital, 6-8 weeks before I'm back to doing everyday activities, and 6 months before I'm back to feeling like myself... which I have vague memories of at this point anyhow.
The other surgery would involve 1 surgery to insert expanders under my skin at my breast area taking skin from my back under my shoulder blade area to cover the scares that are already there from my mastectomy  then I would have saline pumped into the expanders weekly for however, long it takes until I get to the size I like, then they wait 8-10 more weeks to make sure the skin is stretched well, then another surgery to take the expanders out, and put the implants in. . Recovery time 1 day in the hospital after intially placing the expanders, and then day surgery to place the implants. Each with a week to 10 days recovery.
After each of those surgery I would take about 8 weeks to recover, then I would go into the office and have the nipple formed, and after that heals they would then tattoo it to be a darker shade and more realistic looking. The doctor also said with both surgeries there would be some tweaking along the way as I healed to make them look as normal as possible.
Its a lot to think about, even after hearing all that I'm still interested in the first surgical option, but we shall see.

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