Ladies who had DIEP recon in NOLA, I have questions

mustlovepoo- I did my pre-surgical testing locally. There were several places that offered testing for surgery. I choose a large facility that could do everything NOLA wanted at one visit in one location. It was a local hospitals pre-surgical facility. They offer testing for procedures in their hospital as well as anywhere else.

Now, the post op is an issue... if I have an issue. My local breast surgeon, who I LOVE, refused to do the follow up because she didn't do the procedure. Which sucks. Ditto for the PS locally. However, if I really run into issues, I will go to my local Emergency Room or choose one of the large University hospitals who have multi-discilpinary groups. I haven't run into any problems so far. My MO is taking care of my cancer treatments and I feel fairly assured he can refer me to the appropriate doctor(s) I might need if I do run into trouble. So, I'm not that worried. Plus, you can call NOLA if you have follow-up questions. But having my MO is a nice safety net. I was supposed to just get hormone suppression therapy, but after the UMX they all decided I needed chemo and radiation. So, I'll be followed quite closely for that. Which is why I'm not too stressed about finding someone here if I really need someone. I also live in a large Metro area and have LOTS of docs to choose from, along with two research university hospitals, both of which are highly regarded in cancer treatments and reconstruction techniques.

The tests they had me do was a blood draw, urinalysis, EKG, and a chest x-ray. The sent me an order for these tests that I took with me to the facility. Be sure to follow up because for some reason the lab didn't send my urinalysis but sent everything else. It causes stress. lol

mustlove- I stayed for 10 days post-op. I had my DIEP on a Tuesday. I was released from the hospital on that Friday. I recovered amazingly well. I went in for my first post-op the following Monday. And then I saw both docs again that Thursday as I was flying out late afternoon Friday. You can do your two week post-op with them as well. And if my husband wasn't such a worried nelly, I would've airbnb'ed a house and stayed for 3-4 weeks. But he had to get back for work and didn't want me to stay by myself alone. So, I made the decision to come back when I did. If you call them, they will tell you their schedule for women who actually live in the area and their post op schedule. And then you can make a decision based on that. But from everything I read, 10 days to 2 weeks is the critical time period.