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, April 20, 2010

Week 4 - Day 2

More monumental improvements today!! I mowed the lawn this morning and drove this afternoon. My brother, Tommy, and his son, Joe, stopped by for a nice visit today! He was funny. He remembers me telling him last summer about the surgery I was planning to have (PBM + DIEP) and didn't give it any further thought. I think his words were, "That's so far out there that no one would do it." So when he heard that I was in the middle of my surgery 3 weeks ago, he was quite surprised, to say the least. I liked the gasp when he saw my abdominal scar!! Now I can sit back and say, "Yah, I did that and I lived through it!" My recovery is going very smoothly. Mike says it's because he had me working out every morning for a few months before the surgery. You know, I might just be able to start doing that same workout again - maybe tomorrow!! Here I am mowing the lawn this morning.

2 comments:

teri said...

Look at you go! Tada! You did it!

Joanie said...

Teri, thanks so much for your support before, during and after surgery. I will never be able to tell you just how much of a support you have been. I remember following your recovery each week and wondering if I would be able to do as well as you had. So far so good!!

PS - Loved reading about your NYC trip!! What fun!!

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