Mastectomy with reverse abdominoplasty...

Too-Ticky

Hi. I'm trying to decipher what my consultant/surgeon has written on my consent form.

"Right total mastectomy + reverse abdominoplasty and sentinel node biopsy"

My understanding is that I'm having the right breast removed, no reconstruction due to requiring radiation (I would have preferred an immediate reconstruction but sadly that's not to be - he said I may be able to have a delayed reconstruction in 6 months time using my own tissue from my tummy or back), plus sentinel nodes removed/ examined for spread of the cancer.

My cancer is grade 2 lobular, in multiple places in the breast. As the cancer has caused the breast to retract upwards and the worrying part of the cancer is high up on the upper breast, he wants to remove all the skin around it and had some concern that there might not be enough skin left to prevent the wound pulling tight (despite me being large breasted - to me it looks like there's lots of skin, but not to him). He said he thinks there will be enough skin, but he was unsure.

Given that is my understanding of what I was told, what does "reverse abdominoplasty" mean for this mastectomy procedure (without reconstruction)? Any ideas please? Anybody had the same thing done?

Too-Ticky

Today I had my pre-op. Managed to get seen by the Consultant again, they are so busy the nurses wanted to cancel that bit of my pre-op session. But in the end they gave me 5 mins with him, which was good because there have been some changes to the breast he needed to check.

But I also got to ask what a reverse abdominoplasty is and how it's going to affect me. I'm guessing by the lack of responses here, it's either not common or not always called that. Here's what my understanding of it now is:

When in a case like mine there is to be a very large wound created by removing the breast, there isn't enough skin left on the torso to cover the wound. So the surgeon effectively fillets the skin of the upper tummy area to create laxity if you don't have enough baggy tummy skin to stretch upwards over the wound. Then that newly filetted lax skin can be pulled upwards from the tummy onto the chest to cover the wound, hopefully without it pulling too tight. It means a larger area to heal afterwards, more bruising, etc, but resolves the problem of big-boob-wound-small-body during and after the mastectomy.

I'm relieved I now know what it was I signed up for on the consent form!

Has anyone had a similar procedure done during your mastectomy?