DIEP 2011

Stecic, welcome and woohoo on being 4 years out.  That is fabulous!!!!  Are you happy with your DIEP results?

Susan

3 weeks to go !!! Received my pre-op packet in the mail yesterday - this DIEP is fast becoming a reality. Saw my Oncologist yesterday for a follow-up and told her it will be last time that she will be able to examine my (remaining) breast as it will be gone in 3 weeks, HA HA. All is well there. 

I have no bedrooms on so the first floor either - my home is all on one floor. DH's "man-cave" is in the basement - no bed, but plenty of exercise equipment and tools. I won't be venturing down there immediately after the surgery. My laundry room is on the main floor also - but I don't plan on doing any laundry for a while also. I'll be fine delegating that to my DH and DD while I'm on the mend - well, I'll probably be capable of folding laundry at least. I did pick up a wedge pillow at BB&B. It is super comfy (already trying it out), and the price was reasonable with the 20% off coupon ($25 and change).

Welcome to the newbies

   

It sounds like everyone who is post-op is healing wonderfully, and those awaiting surgery are getting prepared.



I am 7 and 1/2 weeks post-op (right treesprite?), and we've been without power a few days because of storm damage. Around the house I have been wearing just a shelf cami, and I can't tell you how many times I have caught myself in the mirror looking just as I did before diagnosis only with a flat, flat stomach!



The only swelling that I think I have is in my stomach at the end of a long day. It is more of a tightness than measurable swelling. I still am packing two surgical wounds, but no pain there.



As I have said before, in clothes (even low cut) I am very balanced and have normal cleavage. One side was skin sparing, one side was not, but cleavage still doesn't give that away. Out of clothes, I am two sizes with a C on the left and a DD on right. I wear shelf camis not bras. I do not have dog ears, but do have a muffin top that pooches a little over my abdomen, especially at the hips. Stage 2 will fix both issues, but with my healing issues, I am fine putting off stage 2 until the fall.



I lost a chemo-sahbee last night. Heaven gained a dear and generous soul who never saw the battle in cancer, just saw the love in life.

@mspradly I am so sorry to hear of your loss and know your pain all to well. I, too, lost 2 dear friends to this silent but serial killer.  My friend Jen was 33 at initial BC DX, and was DX 2 months before me. We basically went thru treatment together - except she had RADS while I had a year of Herceptin. She passed away 2.5 years later with mets to multiple areas. She was an RN and left a DH and 7 y/o son. One of my BFF's died at 38 from gallbladder ca with mets to liver. From dx to her passing was 3 months. She left behind an awesome DH and 2 beautiful girls - 13 and 11. I held her hand to the end - talk about heartbreaking. 

Right now, my brother's former girlfriend fears she has Inflammatory BC and is in the process of consults. She is only 32. I hope she is wrong about the dx. She has 4 children - the youngest is 4.

I HATE BC and can safely add all CA to that statement!

Hi Ladies! The count down is official! Had my pre-op done today. blood test, chest xray, urine test, talked to radiologist and paid my co-pay. I am gettig ready for my girls day out tomorrow. I was passing out fliers all over the hospital. Every since the PS said not to loose any more weight, it seems as if though my metabolism has gone into high gear.Even with all my clothes and shoes on, I still weigh what I weighed yesterday in the buff. I didn't weigh this morning before I left, and I am very pleased at what the scale read. I hope that I can maintain after surgery and keep loosing. I have atleast 40 lbs. that I would love to lose. I probably would have been there by July if my date had not been changed and probably would have been too thin for the DIEP.

iowasue: Sending Blessings and Healing your way!

mspradley; I am so sorry to hear about your friend.

May 27th delayed uni-stacked DIEP with Massey and Sullivan @ Fairway NOLA.

May 20th--delayed uni-DIEP

Chemo-09

Rads 2010

mspradley-thanks for the info, although not the answer I wanted to hear.  I was hoping for a little added benefit to all of this "stuff" we have to go through.

Delayed DIEP scheduled for June 8, after uni mx in March 2010. 

 I am going to try to add this to my profile or signature thing.  I am getting mixed up on everyone too.  This club is TOO big, sad to say.  I am very happy for all the input and advice but it is so sad that there are so many of us.

I had a crazy kinda day at my PS pre op appointment. Come to find out ps was just a little concerned about me being healed enough from rad. After reviewing my chart this week she re learned that I just finished my rad. Jan. 17th 4 months ago. so that is what this last min. consultation was about. Then she called her co ps that will also be working on me Tue. for his opioion plus she called  another ps surgeron( who said he always waits 6 months after rad) and he came in to look at my skin then this ps called yet another ps and he said if my skins good it should be fine. OMG and yes my skin never got bad after rad. so it does look good and so does my chest and stomach CAT scan that I had today for the blood vessels. The ps surgeon actually said I have beautiful blood vessels even some of the best she has seen lol was kinda funny. Any way in the end after freaking me out they left it up to me, so yes it will be all my fault if the rad. doesn't that, I told the  I wanted to just go ahead I feel it will be fine. Prayers please lots of them and thanks ahead of time.

June 21, 2011 - BMX with immediate DIEP (I hope)

I have had previous abdominal surgeries (hysterectomy, oopherectomy,  liposuction) so I may not have adequate vessels to do two breasts. CT and angiogram scans were not clear. My PS won't know until he opens me up. He says I have no other viable donor areas. So if he can only do one flap breast, the other one will have to be created via external tissue expansion and serial micro-fat grafting beginning a few months later. I did not want one living breast and one implant. All this waiting without knowing what my outcome will be is maddening.

Had nipple & skin-sparing bmx with immediate DIEP on March 14th, 2011 2 Phoenix Mayo with Dr. Casey. Due to too small blood vessles on left belly, PS) had to convert to a free-lfap TRAM for that side. I knew that going into the surgery. Surgery was a full 10 hours. Surgery was on a Monday & I went home on Saturday.

Lots of pillows for sleeping the first 4-5 weeks & many days I took a nap after breakfast.

As of today, I'm 8 weeks out from surgery. Sad to say, both breast areolas had partial necropsy (left side has more than the right side). Another known risk before I went into surgery. Left breast still has a big black scab about the size of a quarter. Right breast has one scab about the size of a small pea. Both breasts have some small open wounds that I have to cover with some bandaids. Both flaps are doing great overall.

In the morning when I get up, both breasts have to kinda settle back into where they are supposed to be and they feel pretty heavy & scratchy in the mornings.

I get "sundowner" right at 5pm every night. Things get tight under the armpit. All I wanna do is sit with my arms up & out by my sides. Belly incision gets tighter & scratchy too.

They removed the rib cartilege (sp?) from both sides of my sternum for rib #4. As rib #4 goes down towards the underarm area, that gets a bit touchy when I have a bra on at that sundowner time. I don't seem to have much issue with the area around my sternum

I had two surgical bras (big white very strechy things) left over from lumpectomy & mammosite days that I started using around week 2-3 after my last belly drain was removed. Mostly just to hold bandages in place. I found some semi-sports bras at Walmart ($10) that have front closures. I bought two biggies and wore them for about 2 weeks. My bra line around the rib cage was still pretty swollen. After a that, I bought two more in a smaller size that I still use from time to time. This 2nd set of bras are a bit too big, but, they work for day-to-day stuff.

Ah, my lovely flat belly!!! I sure do love it. My incision is hip bone to hip bone. So far, I've had one little spot where some of the "plastic barbed wire" poked out that I cut off. Per my PS, all my stitches will disolve. I also had one spot near the left hip that had a "stitch" fester up under the skin and was WAY touchy. I used a wet wash-rag heated up in the microwave for 3-4  nights and that solved that problem. And yes, I do have the dog ears on the hip bones.

Sleeping is still a bit of a challenge 8 weeks out. I sleep on one side or the other with a pillow between my knees or behind my back. I do take one percocet at bed time so that I can get comfortable.

Because of my bra size (42B-44C), the stores (even nordstrom's) don't carry that size. I've ordered about 20 off the internet and found a couple that work, at least for now. The rest I had to return. Seems that if you are a 42B, they build the bras for "full figured" and that ain't me. I can't quite handle underwire bras at this time, just to hard on the ribs for some reason.

I wore jeans almost exclusively, even for work. That doesn't work for me yet. I had to go out and buy some elastic waistband-polyester pants for work. I used to wear a size 20 Tall. Now I'm more of an 18 Tall in pants. My top size was a 2x, now it's more of a 1x. My old 2X's are pretty big around the lower belly area. So overall, I've dropped about one size. I did try on a couple of my old jeans. Boy, did they NOT fit the same way at all. I'm somewhat the same waist size, but the lack of the lower belly makes the jeans look like I'm missing a watermelon between the belly button and upper thigh. The jeans are just way to big in that area.

I still have some swelling right behind the belly button. In a funny sort of way, it's almost like a pregnant belly. All in the front & pretty low. It's still hard as a rock. Upper belly is just a little sore. Lower belly is a bit more touchy.

I don't have all my strength back yet. I can't walk for long distance and I get pretty tired come 5 pm. I try not to nap because that makes sleeping tougher.

The foobs do jiggle just a bit. They really aren't the same exact shape as the originals. I did ask the PS to fill out the upper portion just a tiny, tiny bit and he did a great job.

Getting down on my knees & back up are a challenge still. Bending over to pick something off the floor is a bit tougher than before surgery I'm thinking that I'll need to get in some physical therapy pretty quick in order to really get the old me back. Sitting around on the couch as much as I have over the last 8 weeks has been really bad. I've actually gained about 5 lbs.

I drink ALOT of water. More so than I did before surgery. I do take a couple of tylenol early in the day to kinda gets things loosened up. It makes moving around just a tiny bit easier and moving is a good thing. the more I move around, the better I feel and the more I heal.

PS says to rub along the belly incision with a good lotion twice a day for 10 minutes to keep the scar tissue down. No vitamin-E because that makes the scar wider.

I can get in the pool now (in phx it's warm already). PS says it's ok for my own pool but not for a public pool because I still have some small open wound spots. I'm hoping that doing some laps in the pool will help with the tight belly and tightness under the armpit .

Stage 2 is still a long ways out for me. I probably have another month of "healing" for the incisions & open wound spots. Then I can start the 4 month countdown from there. I'm shooting for this fall for stage 2. I'm expecting some skin grafting for stage 2 plus attention to my dog ears on the hip bones.

I return to work (network engineer) on Monday and I have my 55th birthday on Tuesday.

What kinds of exercise and/or how soon did anyone do? Did you PS prescribe physical therapy?

Hope my path sheds some light for the yet-to-come DIEP'ers.

bonny

Well bummer, I had a post mostly written and all of a sudden  the whole screen scrolled to the top and when I came back it was gone.  Anyway.  Bonnygg, thanks for all the great info, you covered a lot.  Why did they remove rib? treesprite-I hope you don't stay cross eyed from trying to organize all of our stats.  I was able to add mine to my signature by going to edit my profile.  If everyone could do that we can just glance at the bottom of the post to see who is what, where, when.  carberry-sounds good.  I don't plan on any modeling either.  IowaSue-you've got my prayers and congrats on the lovely blood vessels. c8ndygr1-you have my prayers too. xmasDx you are an inspiration.  I hope I didn't mix anyone up!  Ladym you are right there giving humor and encouragement!  I love this forum.

Hi Ladies,

I am new to BCO.  How comforting to find others in my shoes!!!  I am scheduled for a BMX and DIEP on May 27th with Dr. Wu at Penn.  I am busy trying to find all the garments I will need for this big adventure.  I really thought that I was perfectly ok with all of this (I have an "it is what it is" mindset), but as the 27th draws nearer, I have to admit that I am getting a bit squirrelly.   

Hey thanks for doing that treesprite, it's great to be able to keep track of where we alll are.

SOooo interesting how so many of you are saying that the pant size isn't down much but the fit is different. Guess I'll just have to wait and see how I turn out...lol

I dont' have any pre-op appointments booked yet, but I'm gonna call soon and make sure I know when to stop taking the tamoxafin.

I love this thread and you women are all so amazing....So happy to have each and every one of you as I go through this journey.....eeeeek