wooHOO! What a Relief. {And an unexpected hoot!}

Hoot first: I come flying in the door from the doctor, who has spent a half hour or forty minutes talking about the bilateral mastectomy slated for January 6. Grab the mail out of the mailbox, and what do I find?

Yes!

A jury summons! For…when else? January 6.

😆

I’ll have to call tomorrow to get an extension, preferably a couple months’ worth. How hilarious is that?

Well, it struck me as hilarious because after talking with WonderSurgeon I came away feeling a great deal better. Indeed, HUGELY reassured.

In the first place, contrary to my expectation, they found NOTHING in the non-guilty breast. No masses, no calcifications, no weirdness of any sort. The guilty breast was not so cut [heh!]-and-dried. She said it was hard to tell because the surgery confounds MRIs with its disruptions, but it was possible there was some residual tumor there. Possibly not, too.

But we agreed that given the size and extent of the DCIS she removed — large and a lot — the smartest, safest, perfect no-hassle course of action is to lob off the guilty boob. She also felt comfortable about removing the innocent boob, for the sake of symmetry (hey! I’m getting Medicare to pay for cosmetic surgery!), safety (chance of recurrence in the contralateral boob is enhanced by the existence of a large DCIS in the other boob, by several re-excisions, and by age), and nuisance factor relief (NO MORE MAMMOGRAMS! EVER!!). This will virtually eliminate the possibility of any future DCIS or invasive cancer in my boobs, from now into perpetuity.

So now I show her the images of what I hope she can do and what I hope she can’t do:

Please do this:

or this:

Not this:

She said it was fairly easy to get the uncomplicated, flat, smooth result shown in the first two images. What appears in the third image is, she said, an unsatisfactory outcome. Part of it is that the woman is stylishly plump (I would not call her “fat,” personally) and part of it is that the surgeon failed to achieve an adequate result. But, she said, given that I’m fairly slender and my boobs aren’t very large, the result should resemble what appears in the b/w images here.

Thank goodness I dropped those 35 pounds last year!!!

Then she showed me some images of one of her patients (no face, no name, no identifiers visible), which she’s planning to put into a presentation for early next year.

Well, when I say WonderSurgeon, I exaggerate not.

This lady — the patient — was a good 80 to 100 pounds overweight. Maybe more. She had large, sagging breasts — very large — with neoplasms in both. For her a double mastectomy was not optional.

The incisions, while long (because it took a lot of doing to remove the substantial amounts of fatty tissue), were as neat and smooth and flat as you can imagine. She showed me the incisions as they looked right after she completed the procedure, while the patient was still asleep on the table, and then she showed how they looked three weeks later,  just about healed. The woman’s chest looked just fine: no “dog ears” as on the poor gal shown in the third image above, no distortions, nothing bizarre in any way.

WonderSurgeon explained in detail exactly how she accomplished this particular work of art. There’s a trick to it, and it’s one she figured out for herself. It’s one of those things that seems simple when it’s explained, so much so you’d think it would be obvious, but it’s not obvious until someone has an Insight.

If she could do that for a woman who presented a challenge of substantial magnitude, she certainly can make me come out like the women in the two b/w images above. Sans the tattoo, of course.

Then I asked my endless set of questions:

Would she refer me to my favorite physical therapist for the shoulder therapy?

Why? You won’t need therapy.

I understand I won’t be able to lift my hands over my head, or even hold a cup of coffee.

You’ll be able to lift your arms over your head, although with the drains in you probably won’t want to for the first few days. You’ll be able to do everything you do normally, right away.

Will the Mayo provide a compression garment, or should I buy a post-mastectomy camisole such as the Amoena 2105 Breast Surgery Camisole with Drainage Management?

Don’t waste your money on that kind of stuff. We’ll give you another compression bra; just pin the drain bulbs to that. You’ll only need it for a couple or three days, as long as it’s comfortable.

When will I be able to pick up a dog bowl (8 pounds) off the floor and put it back down?

Right away.

When will I be able to pick up the dogs (20 to 25 pounds)?

Right away.

A University of Florida page said I may not be able to get out of bed without help. Am I going to need someone to stay with me overnight? For how long?

No. You should have no problem getting out of bed. Or washing your hair. Or putting on a shirt.

Will I be able to wear a plain camisole, without a shelf bra? Or will the scars always be so sensitive that no fabric against them will be tolerable?

Who’s TELLING you this stuff????

The Internet.

And who goes to the Internet? I’ll tell you who: people who have bad outcomes. All the others who have good outcomes get on with their lives and don’t spend their time complaining on the Internet!

Heeee!

Linked images reside at The SCAR Project: Cancer Is Not a Pink Ribbon. Go to the site: it’s incredible. And while you’re at it, buy the guy’s book:

He also has a DVD about the project, very affecting and reality-prone:

We are not our boobs!