Facing My Risk: Surgery plus one

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, March 30, 2010

Surgery plus one

It's Tuesday evening. I'm in a hospital room with Joan. I apologize for the delay in updating. I had some internet issues. Joan came through the surgery just fine. The Doctors say everything is going great. She is having problems with a phlegmy throat from 12+ hours of intubation and is having some issues with the pain medication. She's not in much pain, just a little fuzzy. I will spend the night here to keep an eye on her. She does relax more when I'm here. A wonderful phone call with the girls helped alot too.