PAP vs. DIEP (my experience)

Hi Michelle. Are you doing both legs or one? I only used one leg for the PAP and I'm sure that's why it was easier. There was a woman in the next room to me at NY Eye that had both legs for the PAP. She seemed okay. She complained about the girdles. I must admit that the worst part of the recovery was the girdles they give you at NY Eye. It was very hard to pee with those. The woman next door at NY Eye wore the girdles the whole time and got a rash. Luckily, I had bought some compression/spanx shorts before hand and showed them to Dr. Levine at the hospital. He let me wear those instead of the girdle. So I did. I ended up giving one of the "shorts" (the spanx one which was too tight for me) to the woman in the next room.  The compression shorts made everything so much eaiser. I also bought some compression (Jockeys) shorts which I got at the intimate section at Nordstrom Rack (which is a few blocks away from the hospital). 

I was in the hospital for 4 days. My family came during the day and left at night. They didn't really help that much when I was in the hospital. There wasn't much for them to do. But they did go out and buy me some more compression shorts.

I'm eight days out from surgery and the worst thing is: 1. the drain. I have one left in the leg and it's very annoying 2. the antibiotic that I must take. It makes me bloated and hurts my stomach. 3. the boredom. How much sitting on the sofa can a person do? I do not have children so I do have the luxury of sitting down when I'm tired. 

Also, my leg is sore from the surgery and it's still hard to walk long distances. I'm very slow.  

I found Dr. Levine to be very attentive. They had a doppler machine attached to my flap while in the hospital. One of the wires apparently wasn't working and the nurses couldn't get a strong signal. Dr. Levine returned at 8 pm at night to check on the flap after seeing me twice already that day. I was very impressed. At Chicago, there was a staff of residents and junior docs who were checking on me. My regular surgeon came a few times. In contrast, Dr. Levine saw me every day while I was at NY Ear, sometimes several times.  He relied on the nurses but was pretty much hands on. Once again, this is my experience. 

My advice to anyone doing the pap is to get off the narcotic pain meds as soon as possible and buy compression shorts before you go in.  

This is Morgaine. The drain still hurts but not nearly as badly. I realize that it's not the activity that is aggravating things but sitting on the drain. On Monday, I sat for nearly 8 hours on it and then it really really hurt. I am now trying various positions like sitting on pillows and putting some sort of pad on my leg.

Hopefully this will help.  

Hi. My drain partially came out today as I was walking. I tried several times to fix it but there was no suction. I called my Dr and he told me that there was a risk of infection if the drain was allowed to go "in and out." He told me to pull it out and I did. I put gauze on the wound.

Luckily, I've been producing less than 50 ML for the past few days so I was going to get it out early this week anyway. I've had the drain in over 2 weeks. Has this happened to ohers? I'm supposed to see the Dr this week. 

OMG it's wonderful having the drain out! Unfortunately, it's also quite messy. Because the drain is gone, I can walk much much faster so today i went to the park. I did 1.2 miles in 1/2 hour which, of course, caused  me to produce some fluid. Yuck.

I am heartened that my leg feels much better. Last week, I was saying that an elderly person on crutches could beat me. Not so anymore. 

I am wearing compression shorts. My Dr says I have to wear for a month. This is annoying but tolerable.