on November 10. It was acutally good to get back and try to get my life back to "normal." But to be honest, I have been so exhausted, I've had my moments wondering if I went back too soon. I guess I'm a little too impatient, but I find myself wondering if I'll ever feel normal again! I got a 4 day "break," then started up Block 4, this time a Number Theory class on Monday November 15. My "breaks" haven't been true breaks. Western took Nov. 2, election day off, and I used that day to run down to Rexburg for a Herceptin IV. Then during my 4 day break between blocks, we went to Salt Lake so I could see my surgeon at the Huntsman for my re-construction surgery consult.I just hate it when doctors say to you, "Sit down, let's talk about this." He told me that now that my skin has been radiated, I have a 50-75% chance of failure with an implant. Vicki, my Breast-Health nurse at the Huntsman, has been trying to warn me, and prepare me for that for quite a while, but I kept trying to ignore that. I thought, "Oh, I'll be fine. I'll be able to do the implant." That's the only reconstruction surgery I wanted to consider because it's the "easy" reconstruction, where they take the expander out, put an implant in and you're done! That surgery wouldn't have even required spending a single night in the hospital.
Now I have three terrible options:
(1) Choose no reconstruction - just have the expander taken out, and the stretched skin removed. Unfortunately that would include my nipple, which they managed to save. With that, the last 8 months of misery I have endured with this expander would be all for nothing! I'd go through a whole surgical procedure, and yet finish up looking rather mutilated. Wow - great choice.
(2) Choose the Litissmus Flap reconstruction, where they make a big 'ol incision on your back, cut out a strip of muscle leaving the end attached, then burrow it under the skin, under the arm, attaching it to the chest. They use that strip of muscle like a pocket, inserting a small implant in the pocket. This provides a good blood supply to the chest area so it won't as likely fight and reject the implant, like my current radiated tissue would. This one is about a 3 hour surgery, and would require about 3 days in the hospital. This choice stinks too.
(3) The DIEP (deep inferior epigastric perforators) Flap Surgery. In this one they take a chunk of skin and fat from the the belly - right below the belly button. They transfer that up to the chest to reconstruct a new breast, placing some of the tissue in the pocket the expander created. This one requires about 8 hours of microsurgery, because they're using microscopes to attach a bunch of tiny blood vessels. Then it involves a 5 day hospital stay, so they can monitor that transfered piece of tissue, and all of its newly attached blood vessels to make sure it doesn't die. Oh my gosh! Another option that really sucks! I told my doctor that I didn't like any of the options, but he had nothing else to give me.
So I spent a few difficult days trying to decide what to do so they could get something scheduled. It would take a long time to explain why, but I chose option #3 - the DIEP flap. I have surgery scheduled for Dec. 22. Yes, that means I will be spending Christmas in the hospital. What a bummer! Worst part is, Chase was going to come home for Christmas, but we won't even be at home then. I don't know what he's going to decide to do. So sad. Yeah, it could have been put off til January, but there are a whole list of reasons I won't even go into, as to why January would have been bad - from insurance reasons to teaching in the Spring, etc.
So, wow, something to really look forward to, huh? About the only good thing about it is I will finally be rid of this expander, which I have hated soooo much. It has been pretty painful & miserable. So I'm trying to look to that as my silver lining! We all need our silver linings, don't we?
