Failed DIEP Flap

YEA!!! It's such a freeing feeling to be unattached. Congratulations!!!

Shadow I'm so sorry - in my earlier post I forgot tell you directly! I'm sure your surgery on Tuesday will go well - since you had a skin-sparing mastectomy followed by immediate Diep, - your skin should still be the original breast skin, is that correct? So there's nothing to "stretch".........I'm assuming the skin expander is to keep it from flattening and scarring. The drain won't be fun of course - but I predict that you'll be fine from this surgery. Just keep your hands really clean if you "milk" the drain. Also - ask your PS if he'll be giving you prophylactic antibiotics prior to putting in the TE............I've read how so many women get infections from the TEs. Also ask your PS if he has presurgical scrubbing sponges you can wash with prior to surgery. As you know, I'm sooo anti-infection after what happened to my stomach - check out www.hospitalinfection.org so you can be extra sure you are doing everything you can to help yourself.

It's such a shame your flap was lost - but like my dad always used to say (God rest his soul!) "keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole.".............thinking of his funny expression always put a smile on my face, especially when looking at my still ugly, still mishapen foob! Hang in there Shadow - and may God's angels watch over you!

Was the surgery this past Tues (two days ago)?  Did you stay with the same PS?  Hope it all went well this time!

Sending good, healing thoughts....

Fran 

Shadow!

I am so very sorry to hear of this awful pain issue with your new expander. I do not have any experiences with this. How many cc's did the ps instill into the expander?  Maybe, it was too much, too soon since you just had 2 recent long surgeries. Why so much inflammation too? Was this flap failure related?  You need effective pain management and soon. What did he prescribe for you?? Hope you find answers soon and I would call the surgeon and tell him this pain is awful. He needs to address your concerns NOW!!

Sending you LOTS of healing wishes. YOU deserve to feel better too. Keep us posted.

Lisa

Hope you're feeling better Shadow!

Hi, Shadow,

 Have you asked your surgeon what process has been implemented to ensure that women undergoing surgery at that hosopital in the future are listened to and their concerns addressed in a timely manner by competent professionals?

I think I would insist on an apology from the resident and the nurse on duty that evening. I don't think I would sue as long as the costs of the surgeries to fix the problem were covered by the hospital. I wonder how that resident and nurse explained themselves? They must know they didn't handle your situation appropriately. If they don't know, then the chance of it happening again is increased greatly. How did the surgeon explain himself? 

I hope you continue to heal and wish you the best in your journey. 

Shadow,

I do suggest you notify the NY Dept of Health to create your own investigation with your grave justifiable concerns. It only takes a toll free phone call log your complaint. You did NOT receive standard of care post operatively and they need to know about it so sanctions can be made. The healthcare providers involved need to be accountable so this never happens again. Get copies of your medical records soon, before more alterations are made. Lots of healing wishes to you!

http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/consumer/director/hospcare.htm

... I know that his is a silly question, but what does "foobs" mean? 

Can we please get this topic back up - I think it's called bumping it....I had a failed DIEP recently and really need some questions answered and to know I am far from the only one.  Thanks

Nancy, I'm sorry that you've suffered a failed flap.  What is going on with you right now, and what are your questions?  How can we help?

Hi Nancy,  I had an SGAP failure in March '09.  Had to move on due to chemo, during which I had wound complications. Quite honestly, at the time, I felt very alone, disappointed and sad. 

I stopped coming to these surgery related threads for a long while; although I was happy for them, it was just too difficult to read of other's successes.  Time has healed my wounds and my heart.  I am just now reconsidering another attempt for mid 2011, but it scares the hell out of me. The fear of another failure is very difficult to overcome.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.  Publicly or feel free to pm me if you prefer.   

Shadow so sorry. I am in my beginning stage of breast cancer and I too had a diep flap surgery that failed. I was in surgery for 12 hours 3 days after it was determined due to the monitoring that one did not work. I was rushed into another 2-3 hour surgery and an implant was put in on the breast that it did not work on. After my surgery my incision on my stomach opened up so wide i got worried and had to see my plastic surgeon for an emergency visit. he stitched up as much as he could, but after removing some dead tissue that was attached to it was not able to completely clost the wound and had to have a gaping hole in my stomach that looked like i been shot or something. Definetely not a pretty site and it was very challenging for me to even change my dressing on it. I am not about to have another surgery for removal of the affected lymph nodes and port input and my plastic surgeon is looking into to completely closing the wound. Granted if there is enough skin now to allow it to close. either way i wish i would of just opted for a double masectomy with regular reconstruction. This is the hardest thing i've had to go through in my life. The breast that it did work on constantly leaks and had to also be stictched back up twice.

Hi, I also had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy in May 2015 which had the left side fail for exactly the same reasons. I was devastated especially when my surgeon told me that I was his first ever failure. He has been excellent but there have been many dissappointments. I had 3 surgeries in 4 days totalling 23 hours. They put an expander in the left breast in May 2015 and it is now November 2015 and 5 days ago I had surgery to replace the expander with an implant and to reshape the right breast to make them look somewhat similar. When i woke up from the surgery I was very excited only to be dissappointed when finally getting to see what they did. The left breast is smaller than the right and it doesn't look like they used the right size implant. My right breast doesnt look any different. The surgeons came to see me in hospital the day after the operation and they said it would all settle but I personally can't see that it will. I see my surgeon tomorrow and will express my feelings of dissappointment again and see what he says. I feel there will have to be more surgery. There were a lot of things explained to me before I chose to have this surgery including a 1 in 10 failure rate, but at no time did I ever think that this would become such a drama. I was BRCA positive and so chose to have this as preventative. But I am very sad at the outcome. I think that my advice to people would be to have Mastectomy with implants it is much less invasive and you end up having just as many surgeries, which is why I chose to have DIEP Flap in the first place as it was supposed to be minimal time back in sugery having it all done at once. I still have no nipples so that is more surgery if I choose to go ahead with it and am now looking at more surgery to get the left breast the same size. It has been very overwhelming and I hope this doesnt happen to you. ASK ASK ASK ! lots of questions if you feel something is not right persist until someone answers your questions so that you are reassured. Lots of good wishes to you hope all goes well. Love from Australia.