May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours!
~ Robert Frost

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. This is my story of how I faced my risk of breast cancer, the decisions I made, the support I received and my week by week recovery from surgery. I chose to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with immediate DIEP reconstruction at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (March 2010). For more information on my 'Medical Team' please see tab above. I also have a wonderful circle of friends who have supported me throughout. They have provided us with lots of delicious meals and desserts. Many of those recipes are included above under "Feed the Flap" recipes. "Feed the Flap" is a term I coined when trying to increase my abdominal (fat) flap to ensure that I was a good candidate for the DIEP procedure. This was not something recommended by any medical professional, it was just something that made sense to me. I think it worked!! Feel free to join me on this journey and feel free to post comments.

Select the tabs on the left side marked Week 1, Week 2, Week 3..... to go immediately to the surgical/recovery part of this blog.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

DIEP Consult: 2 days and counting.....

Well, I will know in two days if my plan for DIEP reconstruction after a bilateral mastectomy will work for me. I am meeting with a plastic surgeon in Boston and hope she says that I am a 'great' candidate for the DIEP. I am excited, scared and even more scared, but I want to get this breast cancer monkey off my back and reduce my risk to less than 10% from 50+%.

Having met with two plastic surgeons already, I have learned that the more belly fat I have going into the surgery, the better the outcome. Not that I should become obese, but I would like a B cup. As I have worked at gaining pounds, I have expanded my waistline, much to the dismay of my 7 year old. I have excess fat, which hopefully will become my new breasts. Seems rather bizarre, but this whole idea of making the decision to move forward with a bilateral mastectomy/reconstruction is bizarre.

There is no advocate to talk with, no one who can make this decision for me. In the end I have gathered all the information I can from books, breast cancer websites, medical websites, survivors, breast surgeons, oncologists and plastic surgeons. I feel ready to move forward.

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