Phase 2 of my reconstruction was done yesterday

seof said:

Thank you
Thank you for this post. I had bilateral mastectomy and had reconstruction with the DIEP free flap) procedure. I had some complications with the abdominal site healing, but it is all better now. I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow and I hope to be able to discuss scheduling the second recon. surgery to revise the abdominal scar, reduce the size of the breasts, and make them more symmetrical (left is bigger and has an odd depression in it). I was wondering what to expect with this surgery and recovery. I work in public school and I am thinking that Christmas Break or Spring Break may be good opportunities to do the surgery without missing much work. I tried to post a question related to this, but when I went back to chek for responses, my question had disappeard.

Thanks, seof

seof
You sound as if you are on the same timeframe as me. My original surgery was March 2007, but it was only a partial mastectomy. Chemo from April through September, and Rads from November through December. They did tell me to wait at least a year after rads to have the reconstruction done. My first one was more invasive because they took the tummy and made it into my boob (Robert does ask me if I ate something that upset my tummy when I say the boob aches....). The tummy tuck was quite large and I was left with what they call "dog ears" at each end of the incision. That one was one week in the hospital, and two more weeks at home, then went back to work part time. This one, for the dog ears, implant and revision of the original reconstruction was a day visit. Home by 5pm, and I am heading to the doc tomorrow to get the drain out. I will be driving myself (as long as it is an automatic, I can do it), and hopefully will be back at work by the 23rd of November. He also filled in my port scar, there was a divot there that I could put my whole finger in. Was overdoing it a bit today with laundry, dishes, etc, but I can only tolerate the house getting to a certain side of messy before I go ballistic. Just had to take another pill to cut the pain, but if you figured on two weeks, I don't see why that wouldn't work.

And yes, Moops, flirting with the docs is fun! Remember I had doc handsome one and two? Well they both have wonderful senses of humor too.

Stef, go ahead, think of more, when I told him Picasso, he actually screwed his face up in what we would consider the artists rendering. The anastheseologist was telling me about my meds, one for me, two for him, one for me, two for him. How did I find all the comics in the Plastic Surgery industry?? So I showed them pictures of me from long ago, sitting on a waterfall in all my glory, and they loved it.

Claudia, hives? I know I break out in spots but always thought it was from the tape, I remember your bout with hives, guess I never put the two together, the pharmacist says it has a high probability for women to get sick on it, so why do they continue to use it?? only the shadow knows....
=^..^=