Reconstructive Surgery

I had my reconstructive surgery yesterday.

My plastic surgeon called last evening.

The left breast went fine. It now has a "permanent" implant and a nipple.

The right breast has serious problems. This is where I was having pain. He started on the right, took out the expander, and found that the capsule (the tissue development around the expander) was holding fluid, which appeared to be somehat infected. He could see his finger through the skin, which means that I had been very close to having the expander "blow through" the skin. He put the silicone implant into the right, closed me up and then went onto the left breast.

After he closed me up on the left, he thought again about the right and went back in to remove the implant. He felt I would infect or "blow through" the skin. As a result of radiation, the skin there is paper thin. I asked whether I should have had less rads, and he said no; he said riding the body of the cancer was much more important than cosmectis.

He said I would need 6 to 12 months to completely heal from the radiation (if I would heal completely at all). After that, I could reconsider reconstruction on the right, but it would not be a silicone implant. I would have to have muscle and skin relocated from my belly, my back, or my butt (the butt thing would be at Johns Hopkins or in New Oeleans).

I am so disappointed, but not surprised, with the news on the right. If I had known he couldn't do both with silicone, I might have decided against reconstruction at all and just gone without these damned explander implants all this time. I truly would not have mided being a flat chested, bald, middle-aged woman. I am so disappionted that this is not over. And until I see both sides with the dressings off, I won't be even able to start deciding what I want to do, except cry with the disappointment. ( I am a small boned, 120 lb, 5'5" woman that has little muscle/skin to spare from other parts of my body.)