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.


Saturday, September 26, 2009

It's a go!

On Thursday I met with the DIEP plastic surgeon in Boston. Although I have another consult set up in two weeks, I was impressed enough with her to tentatively schedule my DIEP. I still need to meet with the breast surgeon she recommended, so that will have some bearing on my plans, but I liked her and felt confident in her.

So far I have met with:

2 breast surgeons
4 plastic surgeons
2 oncologists

Still have:
1 plastic surgeon
2 breast surgeons

Then I will have a definite plan in place. I feel good about the DIEP. During the past few months I have been growing my "flap" so that there would be no question about my candidacy for the DIEP. I have been successful - during the past 3 months I have gained 10+ lbs. So when I asked for a "B" cup this doctor said it wouldn't be a problem. Good!!!

She also told me that the total time that I would be in surgery (bilateral mastectomy + DIEP reconstruction) would be 12 hours, possibly less. I was thrilled. The first plastic surgeon I met talked about 22 hours of surgery. Of course, I ran as fast as I could from his office.

So 12 hours sounds great!! I am relieved to find a plastic surgeon who can get me past all this and 'almost' whole again. I liked her!!!

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