Plastic Surgery, Take II

Yesterday I found myself back in the Plastic Surgeons office. This time with a definitive plan on how I want to proceed in killing this cancer, and with Alan by my side.

Unfortunately, this appt. was about one hour after Michelle’s bus stop meltdown and I was in no mood to talk. So in walks Dr. S. with his hand extended saying those words I have come to hate. “How’s everything going?” And that is when I had my meltdown. I couldn’t speak. My throat closed up and the tears started pouring down my face. Dr. S. offered me a moment to compose myself but I was able to squeak out “no, Alan can speak for me.”

But, like a good surgeon, Dr. S. was able to tell us just about everything we would need to know, without our ever asking a question. He says that after Dr. C. removes my breasts he will come in and place expanders under my muscles and close me up. Easy peasy, right? The whole procedure will take a minimum of 4 hours. And I can expect to spend at least one night in the hospital. Then I will see him weekly after that so he can expand my expanders until they are the desired size. I’m still thinking C cup but from what I understand I can stop the expanding at any time if I am comfortable with the size/shape. Once the expanding stops, I wait….was it about 6 wks? For the skin to heal and then the silicone will be inserted. And voila! New breasts! But…I cannot bring myself to even talk about the whole nipple reconstruction. It’s just too weird. Sounds to me like I will be ringing in the new year with new boobs. Crazy. And I am still having a hard time processing this. It just seems too unreal.

He also told me that not only will I leave surgery with a port below my clavicle for the chemo (I knew about that), I will also have two “drains” on either side of my chest so that I can (approx) twice daily dispose of the medical waste that will be draining out. Wait. Back up. What?? Drains? Sticking out my sides? That I have to empty? Ewww…I know I am a nurse and all, and I do like to see some gross stuff and everything…but this?? This is nuts! I don’t want that. Really. I don’t. And I am going to be calling on all my nurse friends to help me with this. Because in all this shit I’m going thru, this is where I draw the line.

I forgot to ask Dr. S. how long the drains will be in place. I also forgot to ask how much time I needed to heal before I could go back and do my job unrestricted. He gave me his cell number tho. I wonder if he gets text messages?

So while there Dr. S. needs to take measurements. All kinds of measurements, top to bottom, side to side, diagonal. And don’t forget the pictures!! Oh yes! Pictures from all different angles of my breasts. He says they are all shoulder and down tho. I hope so. I wonder if he will give me a copy? So there I stand in my jeans and shoes, my hospital gown open and pushed off my shoulders while Dr. S. sat on a swivel stool in front of me taking pictures and measurements. Behind him over his right shoulder is Alan. And to his right is the nurse who is kindly writing down all the measurements. Dr. S. is just calling them out like it’s a sandwich order and 15cm. is really code word for “turkey on rye.” And directly in front of me, directly! Less than 5 feet away and only slightly obscured my Dr. S. on his swivel stool is a great big full length mirror! Fun!! So I get to stand there and stare at myself while I’m being measured and photographed and all I could think at that point was “who on earth would put a mirror there? Right there? Where I can watch this? Bahhhh…men…” And then I closed my eyes.

But I did not fail to mention to Dr. S. as I was leaving that the mirror wasn’t helpful. At all.

And so now his scheduler is going to call Dr. C.’s scheduler and they will schedule my surgery.