Surgery Schedule

BCTrish

Hi All,

I am scheduled for a mastectomy with reconstruction on June 2.  At least I think I am.  I set the date over the phone after meeting with both docs.  I was told I was penciled in and made the pre op visit with the breast surgeon for this coming Thursday.  I was told I would get all the paperwork that day.  I am getting concerned however because my neighbors niece works at he hospital and says my name is not on the surgery schedule.  Now I am nervous that there was some type of screw up.  My husband is going to call tomorrow while I am at work.  Anybody out there work in a hospital and know how the system works?  I am thinking that I am on the dr's schedule but not the hospital because the paperwork isn't filled out yet.  Any thoughts?

GerryMc

Hi, I am a retired registered nurse and am deeply acquainted with what I saw in my hospital. I am sure all of them are a little different,however. With that said, we got the OR schedule the very night before for the next day. You are attributing WAY more organization to a hospital than it deserves, I am pretty sure. What with slots left open for last minute emergencies and just plain human variability, there is no way your name is even heard of in the hospital. People develop upper respiratory infections,etc. etc. etc. At the very earliest, your name will pop up after you get your pre-op lab work.

And on another note, I am in the very same shoes you are. I have met with the plastic surgeon and will see the breast oncology surgeon on May 5th to plan for a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. What are your details? I had a lumpectomy with radiation in the L in 2000. No recurrence until I was having a bilateral MRI for pre-op reconstruction and a funny (but benign) bunch of cells showed up in the R one.What with my history and the thinking in 2014, I elected to have the bil. mast. instead of just getting reconstruction and constantly having the chance of cancer returning in my R breast anyway. Drastic but wise, I am told. I still have a huge hematoma in my R breast 5 weeks after the biopsy and I just don't want all that future trauma for follow-up of abnormalities especially after getting them looking good again. The radiation saved my life but has left my L breast half the size of the R one. Radiation is the "gift that keeps on giving" says my plastic surgeon.

Keep in touch,BCTrish, looks like our paths may converge!! By the way, what kind of reconstruction are you having? I am having fat grafting.

BCTrish

Thanks so much for your reply!  I was thinking along those lines but started getting nervous.  I am a long time breast cancer survivor.  I was dx in 1996.  I had a mastectomy at that time with 3 out of 23 lymph nodes positive.  I did CAF chemo 14 treatments in all.  I had a TRAM flap reconstruction done in 1998 then a full hysterectomy in 2000.  I was tested for the BRCA gene about 10 years ago.  It came back positive....BRCA 1. I was doing the surveillance thing but after a scare last year decided that I really needed to take action.  Plus my 31 year old daughter was tested last summer.....she was negative for the gene.....but was ready to do what she needed to do.  That was my true inspiration.  So with the support of my wonderful husband, family and friends I am ready to just get this surgery behind me!  I am going to have the mastectomy with tissue expander.  Also having a sentinel node biopsy to be on the safe side.  I'm nervous but know in my heart it is the right choice.  I have already outlived many relatives who battled this disease and or ovarian cancer including my mom, my grandmom, aunts and cousins.  

Good luck to you!  I will say a prayer for you on May 5th.  That's my birthday!

GerryMc

Are you saying that you had a TRAM flap on one breast after mastectomy and are now going to have the other one removed with tissue expander put in? Or are you undoing the TRAM flap also? God, there are so many choices in breast cancer treatment. It is amazing.

BCTrish

Keeping the TRAM but it will probably need revisions later on.  So right breast (where the cancer was) will be TRAM and left breast (one being removed on June 2) will be tissue expander/implant.  This was one of the reasons it took me so long to make this decision.  I didn't know what they could to to reconstruct the left side that would be a reasonable match for the TRAM.  My TRAM is the pedicle type.   I knew they couldn't do that again......nor would I want to!  I have had too many abdominal surgeries to consider any more harvesting from that area and did not want tissue taken from my buttocks or thighs.  My oncologist thought I would probably be a good candidate for the Lattisimus Dorsi.  I was nervous about that because I am a musician with my primary instrument being the piano.  But that was what I thought I would do when I went to see my PS.   After examining me he told me that it was going to be a difficult match and that he did not feel that the results between using the back muscle or the tissue expander/implant would not be enough to justify compromising the muscle.  So I decided to do the expander.  He explained that I will look very uneven through the summer until the exchange is done sometime in the fall.  I think I have a good idea what to expect and am happy not to lose another muscle.  There have been some when I have posted on discussion boards with questions who have been very negative saying how different they will look and feel.   I'm not interested in the feel and trust my PS will give me a reasonable match.  His group is well known in the Philadelphia area and my TRAM turned out great.  

So that's my story!

GerryMc

Wow, as I said above, isn't this an amazing trip??? It is traumatic and sad but there are lots of options for moving forward.  So,are you like me? No cancer in the other breast but wanting symmetry and the lack of chance of developing another cancer? Being in the medical field, I know that a different radiologist or a different technician doing the MRI follow up scan in 6 months could end up saying that the results of new scan look "different" from 6 months ago and recommend another biopsy. Did you have a recent biopsy? Mine gave me the biggest hematoma I have ever had. I have a lump at least as large as a plum,maybe a baseball, which is sore almost 6 weeks later. If I didn't have cancer before, I could see them causing so much ambiguous trama to it, it might look like or be cancer later!

I am nervous,too,about losing my breasts but you'd be amazed at what radiation makes you look like. Hoping that the irradiated breast can be made to look like the other breast after bilateral mastectomy. It has to be hard for them to do. Seems like achieving symmetry is the normal problem for all of us since we usually elect to do the least traumatic things at every choice. Angelina Jolie did do a lot to push us into a more aggressive choice,didn't she? Hats off to her. I haven't read it but she must have had implants before,don't you think? She probably asked for some BIG implants!!

As you see, it took me a long time,too. I had my cancer in 2000 and never had a thought about reconstruction till a couple of years ago after watching this L breast shrivel more and more every year. I thought I could live with just the lumpectomy and I did for a long,long time.