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.


Sunday, June 13, 2010

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I am a happy mom. On most days I don't even think about my surgery or my breasts or breast cancer. Life is good. Today, just before this picture was taken I had to tell my girls not to jump on my scar or my belly. They tried not to, but did it anyway, laughing as hard as they could. They weren't hurting me, it's just uncomfortable. But that was the only time all day that I even thought about my body.

It's hard to believe that I could go through this very rugged surgery and 10 weeks later not even think about it. Now that I have the right bras I don't even have to think about what I am going to wear each morning. It is just like it was before the surgery - only so much better.

I saw an old old acquaintance today at at party and we talked about breast cancer. She finished her chemo about the time I started my research into LCIS, PBM, DIEP. She mentioned that when she was faced with the decision to choose a surgery, she chose lumpectomy. The other option given her besides lumpectomy and implants was TRAM. She chose lumpectomy because she didn't want to sacrifice her stomach muscles. She had assumed that that's what I did. She had no idea about the DIEP. I wish everyone had the DIEP presented to them as an option.

Once again I am grateful for my local breast surgeon who discovered the non-invasive LCIS and for the best plastic surgeons in the world in Boston. I know how lucky I am.

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