DONE!

Everything is done!  Another successful surgery!

I was more nervous for this one than last time.  I had this sense that something was going to go wrong.  I felt like things would be delayed or forgotten or something just because of it being the day after a holiday being kind of relaxed sort of a day.

As we were entering the hospital doors, my phone rang.  It was Dr. J's nurse. My heart skipped a beat.  I was so afraid the next words were going to be that we had to cancel for some reason or another.  But that was not the case at all!  They were running ahead of schedule and wanted to know if I could get there as soon as possible.

From that point on everything went fabulous! I got a fast pass through everything and was in surgery almost an hour ahead of schedule.  No strange recovery room neighbors, no nausea.  The only negative of the whole morning was that the nurse admitting me was feeling rushed and had very shaky hands.

I am still feeling the anesthesia.  I have been up for a few times this afternoon, but then like drop off to sleep immediately.  I am feeling kind of like motion sick as well (just sitting on the couch watching the girls dance and jump around the living room was making me dizzy).

While I am feeling ok right now and the recovery from it is a breeze in comparison to the others, I can say with certainty that this is absolutely the last time.  I do not want to wear a bear paw gown again for a long time!  I am hoping it will be 10+ years before I'm back to the second floor of St. Mary's hospital again.

 Some family fun the night before.

 The will be my last time in these silly Bear Paw inflatable gowns for a long time.

What happens when one little girl is left to her own devices.  

Someone else looks like me!

A typical night in our house after the kids are tucked into bed, usually involves Mitch watching some DVR'ed shows while I work diligently on school work (or crush some candy, online shop, pin things, etc.).  I catch bits and pieces of what he's watching, but rarely pay much attention because he has a habit of getting into shows that are bound for cancellation.  Just the other night, Revolution caught my attention. Half way though, I interrupted him with, "Did you see that! Rewind it!" I'm sure he was thinking I caught something in the crazy storyline, but I continued "Look at her chest! It's just like me!"

Elizabeth Mitchell. Do you see that shadow to the right of her center cleavage?  She has concave areas on her chest! In other scenes you can see the concave spots in plenty of other areas.  So now this leads me to a ton of questions:  Is she like me?  Does she have implants? For reconstruction or regular purposes?  Or are they giving her shadows and a hollowed look because of the storyline? They are living in a worldwide blackout fighting a revolution nearly dying each day, thus not much access to food or fresh clothing. Either way, I kind of like it!  However hopefully after this final step, I won't look like that anymore.

This is the last one!

I forgot to mention, this is my final reconstruction surgery.  This will be my last attempt.  If after this try, they are not perfect (or maybe just normal looking), then I feel like they don't need to be. I want some time away from the hospital.  I do not have plans to do another BRCA related surgery until I am 40.  :)

"Eat more sausage"

Never have I expected to hear those words come from a doctor, but they honestly came out of Dr. J's mouth at my latest appointment.  I knew I picked the right plastic surgeon!  

I had a quick check on my reconstruction looking particularly at the fat grafting that was done this summer.  It appears that I still need a bit more.  The problem is that all of my fat in this area was removed during my mastectomy (because that is a main component of breast tissue).  This leaves just thin skin and implant in some areas, with more muscle in others.  The skin falls into the open space.  I am not particularly fat in this area anyway; hence, Dr. J telling me to eat more sausage. Luckily I have plenty to spare in my post baby belly (am I still allowed to call it that 3 years later?) and don't need to change my diet at all. He said that it's like painting. Two thin coats are better than one thick coat.  The day after Thanksgiving I will be going for my second layer of fat grafting.  It will be the same procedure as last time.  

This is something that I know and feel totally comfortable with. I have even started thinking about if I can beat my time.  Last time it was 4 hours 50 minutes.  This time with it being the day after Thanksgiving, I am hoping not to burden someone with watching my children for too long forcing them to miss the good sales (or taking away their adult nap time from late night/early morning shopping the day before).  Let's see how fast I can get through that recovery room this time!  

The only thing I am not excited about is more incisions.  I counted up what I have.  From shoulder to pelvis, I have had 23 incisions over the past almost six years.  And 3 of those incision sites have been re-used for repeated procedures.  They are just starting to look better, hopefully a few of them will be re-used again this time.