DIEP 2015

IndigoMont11

Hi all. I posted a couple of times early this year - glad to see some familiar names! I did find a surgeon in my network who is very experienced with the muscle-sparing free TRAM, and I decided after having a very good consult with him that was the way I would go. However, thanks to family concerns and job craziness this year, I am waiting to do the surgery until September or October 2016. When I told my family that I wanted to go ahead with recon, my 22-year-old son said, "Do what you feel is best - I'll have your back." My oldest (now 26) and hubby were very much against the idea. They were both really worried about risk, and also, hubby has disabilities, and won't be able to help very much with recovery. Legit concerns. And I had to do some more soul-searching - to see if I really wanted this, or if I just would feel better losing the 30 pounds that showed up the year after I completed treatment. The extra pounds resulted in a belly I never had before, which are making the surgery possible, but ack, I hate being this size! Anyway, I've been doing yoga and working at not gaining any more/losing up to 15 pounds. At this point, I've had time to talk to hubby, and look into a home health nurse with my insurance. It helped a little that two of my coworkers had tummy tucks this year, and I've been able to see their results (both good). And it also helped to catch up on this board and see how many ladies are around my age (I turned 55 in June). I've put off starting an AI (I've been on Tamoxifen since December 2012), but I'm going to switch this year; I don't have a history of clotting problems, but it seems like I should go ahead with it now anyway. I'll be checking in here from time to time, although I'll probably join another thread for next year. Hugs to all of you! The idea sharing is more helpful than I can say!

Blossom40

Hey everyone!

It has been a little while since I have posted. I had my Bil DIEP surgery in March. Finally healed completely from the surgery. My abdominal incision decided to open on one side so my surgeon went on and cleaned it out and closed it up.

I am looking to have stage 2 sometime in Dec. My surgeon said that at stage 2 if I wanted to go bigger I could either do fat grafting or he could insert a small implant in. I am leaning toward the small implant. Have any of you had a small implant inserted at stage 2 ? If so are you happy with the results? I have heard that if you do the fat transfer your body just absorbs it.

Tulip21

Thank you tryingtostay, that makes me feel a little better.

Tulip21

Thank you tryingtostaypositive7, that makes me feel a little better about the warming blanket. Anyone else have experience with the warming blanket?

slv58

Tulip, I did not have a warming blanket but the room I was in had a faulty thermostat that had the room very warm. I was sweating non stop- on one visit from my PS, after complaining how hot I was, she commented that it was really good for aiding in the circulation of the newly attached flap. After that I put up with it to protect my new baby! 

The discomforts and pain we put up with is very short term in the scheme of things. I'm 5 months out and everything is a distant memory- I would do it again in a heartbeat! 

TallyLassie

Hi everybody...It's been awhile since I posted but I read every entry. I had my Phase 2 last Wednesday (2 days after my 59th birthday) and feeling pretty good today. The doctor had planned to go right to fat grafting and nipple placement, but he took one look and agreed with me that the reconstructed breast was too large. So he surgically reduced it in size and lifted it a little bit. It now feels less heavy but it looks kind of scary, lumpy and flat on the bottom, and maybe even a little smaller than my natural one. Thank god my husband was there and remembers what the doctor said in post-op because I was totally out of it. He said not to freak out at its appearance and to give it 12 weeks to "settle in". So glad he said that. Not gonna post a picture yet for that reason. This surgery was only about 90 minutes and we were able to drive home (2 1/2 hours) that same day. Since most of my nerves are gone anyway, I was on minimal pain pills. Can't wait to be done with all of this.

Warming blanket was the least of my concerns in 4 days of ICU post-op. In fact, the room was always too cool for me, so when the nurse would bring that warm blanket, it felt like mommy tucking me in at night, just a warm great feeling. And they do say it is good for circulation.

Good luck everyone!

Bunnybumps

It's been a while since I posted, but I'm now almost three weeks post op for bmx and DIEP/muscle-sparing free TRAM. I had five out of six drains removed and the last bugger is still stubbornly shifting about 40ml a day. Understandable since it's where they took loads of nodes, but still.... My next appt is on Wednesday and I'm hoping it tapers off soon or it may delay chemo.

My biggest hurrah moment this past week is that I figured out how to comfortably lay on my side. Less tush pain (I'm not a back sleeper) and one step closer to getting back in my own bed. Can't wait!

Overall, I'm standing up straighter (the back pain is lightening), showering myself, doing my PT exercises, I can make it once around the block with my walker without stopping, I can assemble meals (no cooking just yet), dress myself, do small loads of laundry, and can cope on my own for most of the day by myself. so grateful to my family and friends who have helped me get to this point, and continue to help me progress every day!!

IndigoMont11, this is a tough surgery, but it is very doable with pre-planning. Home Health Aides are good, and your husband may be surprised at how much he could do to help. Friends and neighbors are great resources, too. Some helped me and my family, even if only for a couple of hours. And each day you make progress with what you can do for yourself, so you're not as dependent as long as you might think. I wish you all the best and I'm so happy for you that your younger son is behind you.

Oceanview1

Hi ladies- I am nearly 2 months post op from my MX DIEP flap which was really a muscle sparing TRANS flap. 5 days in hospital and major chest pain. Ouch Still very sore, going to pt twice a week for both arms (!),but off pain meds and back at work. Just saw PS who says second step fat transfer will be in December. Very small on left side- can anyone advise how big the transfer can be? PS said I'll needs at least two. So tired of surgery and rads which damaged my skin-now looks like a "Frankenboob". 💝

Moderators

Oceanview - Hi, and welcome to the BC.org community! Besides the wonderful advise and personal experiences you'll find here in the boards, you can lear more on this procedure in the article Fat Grafting from our main site.Hope this helps! Please come back to let everybody know how you're doing.

The Mods

Oceanview1

Hi Moderators and other fab ladies. Brand new to this board and kind thanks for the overview of fat grafts/lipo. I'm barely an A cup on the "new" left side and a full C on the other despite having been reduced and lifted twice. Post DIEP surgery and thanks to rads, there is a fat roll underneath my arm (not sure of it's proper nickname ?), an oval scar around my foob, and not much boob to speak of. I do have a 29" inch violet scar from hip to hip with a pooch sticking out on one end. PS said that would settle down, but I cried the day before I drove up to UCLA. Only two pairs of pants fit me, despite losing 10 pounds post op, as my upper belly sticks out and is hard. This is SO not what I expected. My previous saline implant incapsulated and turned rock hard after rads, but it never looked like a breast - more like a body builder's boob with no droopage. Any tips are welcome! TallyLassie rooting for your boob to settle in. Blossom40 I may need another implant too. Hugs to you all.

Blossom40

oceanview1

The swollen belly gets better over time, I am 4 months post Bil DIEP and my belly still swells some but not nearly as bad as right after surgery. My scars will fade over time. Don't get discouraged , it does get better.

Oceanview1

Hi Blossom - thanks for the encouragement. I just didn't know what to expect post-op. All photos of the DIEP I looked at were probably one year out and stage 2. PS says I need at least 2 fat transfers. First one planned in December - hoping the lipo can come out of my belly. lol Looks like you had the same chemo cocktail as me, After 6 rounds of chemo most of my hair remained thanks to Cold caps). Bunnybumps you may like cold caps to preserve your hair - please see Hortense posts in cold caps forum.

Bunnybumps

Thanks Oceanview! I'll consider it. I'm not that attached to my hair (witness my super short cuts), and I'm already very cold/heat intolerant, but I will look into it as an option.

mefromcc

Outdoorswoman,

May your surgery tomorrow be uneventful. May you wake up and be as thrilled with your new foobs as I was.

mefromcc

Hi all. I haven't contributed much lately because we took our RV up to the cool high country forest chilling out and out of the reach of the Internet.

My open draining wound finally healed two weeks after the PS cut out the undissolved suture. I will see him again next Tuesday and hopefully we can talk about when to do fat grafting on the foob that had the necrotic tissue removed.

I am revitalized after my vacation and am ready to get this BC over with and behind me.

Blossom40

it also took me a while to get all my energy back. I was beginning to wonder. But I have to say it was so worth it. I feel so much better about myself now !

Yes it looks like we did have the same chemo. I had 4 rounds and lost all of my hair. That was the hardest for me.

Outdoorswoman

mefromcc thank you for the well wishes. Nervous but have to be there at 5:15 am so only 7 hours left to think. I think I'm more worried about getting lymphedema or not like the result of the foobs more than the amount of pain.

Morwenna

My existing (mild) lymphedema was not exacerbated by my surgery, somewhat to my surprise! If anything, it is better now than it was last year!

Hope all goes well for you! xxx

Cseagirl

I'm considering having PDMX DIEP this Fall at Brigham & Women's Hospital(Golshan/Halverson). Looking for any feedback or other recommendations.

dismay15

two weeks post op from bmx and immediate deip flap. Still need pain meds for tightness and discomfort - down to three pills per day. Not as much as in the beginning but wish I was off them completely. I'm doing my exercises but skin tightness and sensitivity still getting tome. Am I being impatient - please advise

TallyLassie

Dismay, you called it right...you are feeling impatient. So was I! Looking back in my notes, I was still taking about the same amount of pain pills as you at this point. (I kept a daily journal, in part to track when and what medications I took.) The doctor prescribed me 60 oxys and I thought there was no way I'd take them all. I ended up taking 55 of them. I still took at least one oxy a day until I was 25 days out from the operation, and even after that I had to take one occasionally. And I did fine, didn't get addicted. Start moving slowly--I just walked around my house in loops at first, then around the block, then 30 minutes, then 45. It was about 6 weeks until I was feeling more like myself. I was doing yoga at about 7 weeks. The abdominal tightness comes and goes because you've got a disrupted lymphatic system that fills up sometimes. Hang in there. Everyone heals at a different pace, so you may have a different experience. Keep that in mind. Good luck to you. The worst part is over.

LAstar

dismay15, many of us get the blues around week 3 or 4 because this is such a long recovery. Usually the blues hit right before you turn the corner and start feeling better on a daily basis rather than just improving on a weekly basis. Try to enjoy your down time as much as you can -- good movies, fluffy books, calls to old friends, slow walks -- and it will be a dim memory before you know it.

phoebe58

Hello everyone. I am new here, though for the past month since finding you I have been fervently reading [and taking notes of tips] and managed to do 2013 in full, 2014 started, and now had to skip ahead to 2015 as my own double Diep date is finally just around the corner: Aug 20 in Vancouver.

Although it's been a pretty long year so far it has surprisingly flown by -- diagnosed in the fall with a larger tumour that needed chemo first to safely shrink, and then hormonal therapy to shrink it further, and I am now ready for surgery. After flopping back and forth like a fish on the dock, I am really happy to have settled on the Diep procedure -- who knew that menopausal tummy pooch would come in so handy! It's given me lots of time to research what to expect and where to go, which is a real plus. My surgeon is apparently very skillful, so am thrilled to have her.

I feel like I have my ducks in a row... well, as much as one can! I am getting a tad anxious, but overall not bad. It didn't help that the septic out at the lake house decided to fail on the August long weekend, grrrrrr really! I hope to be able to resume a fairly active outdoor life, and fingers crossed re no lymphedema. I do a lot of kayaking and new this year paddle boarding, and seem to always be lugging something around in the garden, so want to have decent abdominal and arm strength again one day

On the 18th I fly to Vancouver from central BC and stay there for 2 weeks. After 5 nights in the hospital, I am fortunate to have a great long time friend to stay with. I've rented a power recliner for that time, and will come home to my bed with a kazillion pillows. I live alone but lots of friends will be coming by, and I hired a housekeeper weekly for September.

Thank you, thank you!!! for all of your wisdom and experiences. It has been [and will continue to be] so very helpful. Best wishes on your own upcoming surgeries and ongoing healing.

slv58

Phoebe58, welcome and good luck with your surgery! Speedy, uneventful healing, just be patient with yourself and do your arm exercises when given the all clear! Don't push it, you will need time to heal. You may want to look into a shower bench- or plastic stool that you can sit on to shower- you'll probably only use it for a couple weeks but I found it came in handy as I tired very easily in the beginning. Your not allowed to raise your diep arm past shoulder height until the all clear, so bring able to sit and lower your head was doable with a bench.i found mine very inexpensively- brand new on Craigslist.

Sounds like your ready with lots of pillows! One suggestion I read that I wish I thought about was a 'long handle grabber'- I got very frustrated when I dropped things and had to leave them on the floor till DH came home! The other thing was a few pairs of high waist panties. I didn't think of that and all my pre diep ones sat right on the incision! Luckily the hospital gave me a few pairs that tied me over till I could go out and buy some. I also made use initially of a box of wet wipes to freshen up. Good luck, I hope you'll be as happy as I am! There was something so comforting to waking up and seeing a warm, soft breast mound that was all me!

dismay15

Thank you so much TallyLassie and LAstar I am so grateful to u both for giving me the benefit of your experience. You have helped me more than I can express. I was overthinking the meds and I plan to just put one foot in front of the other and take my baby steps to recovery. The hard part is over and this too will pass.

Bunnybumps

LAstar and tallylassie, thanks you so much for what you wrote. I am three weeks and four days out and the doctor will not renew my pain meds any longer. I'm on Tylenol every four hours and still very sore. I've been very weepy, angry, and very emotional about everything, especially now my 15 year old cat is sick and we had to rush her to vet this morning. I'm glad to know that this is normal and that hopefully soon I will turn in another corner. Thanks again!

Morwenna

My basteward surgeon only ordered plain Tylenol and Ibuprofen for me post op. I had to beg for something stronger, and I really felt my pain control in hospital was sadly lacking.

When I came home, I used up some Tylenol #3 I had left over from a previous surgery, and when I went back for a follow up around 8 days post op and got my drains pulled, he did agree to give me a prescription for some more, although he seemed a bit surprised!

Funnily enough, I only needed them for a couple more days, then the other stuff was enough as my back pain started to subside!

It really took a good 4 weeks before I started to feel better, and then I was diagnosed with lung clots at 5 weeks!

All water under the bridge now. Yesterday I ran up five floors from the parking lot to my office, and I have just embarked upon a plank exercise program this week. Up to 40 seconds today! w00t!

TallyLassie

Good luck Dismay and Bunny...happy to share my experience as this forum has helped me so much in the past. To that end, I want to share that my Phase 2 surgery 10 days ago went well. I thought I'd be finishing things up with fat grafting and nipple placement, but I'm glad my PS agreed with me that the new "foob" was larger than my natural one, so he did a reduction and lift on the foob, which used the same incisions as the original operation. At first it looked mangled, but it is now looking better. The great thing about Phase 2 is that I have so few nerves there that it doesn't hurt much. The bad thing is that now I won't get the final Phase 3 until November 11. That's about the same time that I'll finish my year of Herceptin, so this should be a great Thanksgiving. Hang in there everyone, it's worth it.

LAstar

Wow, Morweena And Bunnybumps -- I can't believe your surgeons were being so stingy about pain meds! I took mine for 6 weeks after BMX/SGAP. I don't like to take pain meds if I don't need them, but without them I could not be an engaged mom/wife or go for walks, which helps recovery immensely. Bunnybumps, I'd be feeling emotional too! Pain is no fun, and you shouldn't have to go through it.

Js5

hi Cseagirl,

I am scheduled for BMX with immediate DIEP reconstruction on August 25 with Troyan/Halvorson and I am happy to answer any questions regarding my experience with them at Brigham & women's. Feel free to PM me anytime