Nightmare before Christmas or the day that I decided to finally fire my plastic surgeon

In my last post I described my reconstruction surgery.  While I love my flat stomach and I'm grateful to have two boobs again, as I start to examine the work, I had some questions for my favorite plastic surgeon (PS).  For one, I am covered in scars.  I have a long horizontal one for the tummy tuck.  The boobs, well, let's just say I sort of feel like Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas:

What I currently feel like.  Perhaps I should get a Sally tattoo?

I had a check-up with my PS yesterday.  Here's a summary of our conversation:

Me: What are the next steps were as I continue to heal?  

PS (with a puzzled look on his face): What do you mean, "next steps"? 

Me: Well, the scars.  I look like a character out of Nightmare Before Christmas (yes, I actually said this to him.  I'm sure few of you are surprised).  

PS (condescendingly of course): There are no next steps.  I don't think you look like a creature but there's nothing we can do to hide the scars.  Don't worry, when we do the tattooing, you won't notice them anymore.

I hate him.  I've never liked this guy, but today I had my limit.  It wasn't so much his answer, it was the way he answered.  I take some responsibility for not asking more questions, but it never occurred to me that there would be so many scars.  And it's always been difficult to pull information out of this guy.  Some scars?  Sure.  Looking like a patchwork quilt?  No.  I was told time and time again that his work as amazing.  If this is amazing work, I cringe to see what non-amazing work looks like.

I wanted to say several things to him:  that he was a condescending asshole, that if the tables were turned and we were talking about penis surgery, I'm sure the scarring issue would have been resolved a long time ago.  Instead, I held it together until he and the rest of the team left the room and I lost it. I didn't want to give this guy the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

Thankfully, I ended up having lunch with a friend yesterday, which got me out of the house and was a good distraction.  As far as I'm concerned I'm done with him.  Time to find a surgeon that's willing to listen to me and help me out here.

I also had a conversation with a friend this morning who was recently diagnosed and is making her own decisions around treatment, double mastectomies and the type of reconstruction to get.  She had been leaning towards the exact same surgery and called me to talk about the pictures she had seen yesterday.  She had been horried by (wait for it)...the scars.  Her timing was uncanny.  She's working with another PS in the same office as mine.  I know somebody else that's working with this doc too and I've heard nothing but good things about his bedside manner.

At this point I feel like an idiot.  That being said, it's hard to ask questions of somebody that isn't that interested in interacting with his patients.  If I knew a few months ago what I know now, I would have asked a lot more questions.  Shame on me for trusting the opinions of other healthcare professionals.  Other than firing my PS, I'm not sure what else to do.  I just feel stuck and helpless.  The attitude seems to be, "this is what the surgery is."  Which makes me feel like I should just be happy to be alive and my breasts and the way they look now is just something I have to live with.  Which is bullshit to me.

This is a bit of a ramble and a rant and I apologize for that--I try to write more concise posts but my emotions are far too raw right now.  The good news is physically I feel great.  I get tired and I'm not ready to start exercising yet (nor am I even cleared for that).  I guess my future of outfits with deep cleavage and side boob and just going to have to wait until I get over my self-consciousness of the scars.  At least I can focus on wearing midriff tops now.  Sorry, my knee jerk reaction is to make jokes in times like these.

Some updates and a movie warning

It's been almost two months since I've written on this blog.  As a reminder, my book review blog is alive and well.  A few recent events have inspired me to check in and share my thoughts on what's going on.

First, I just realized that I never posted about finally getting a second opinion on my surgery.  As you might remember from past blogs, like this one, this one, and this one, my plastic surgeon and I haven't always connected. I will say, I had my final check-in with him back in June and he was the most engaging he's ever been.  Anyway, I went to MGH to see a plastic surgeon that a friend of a friend recommended.  The surgeon was so nice, but it turned out she didn't do the surgery I was going to have and she strongly recommended....can you guess?  My plastic surgeon.  She did acknowledge that his personality wasn't the best.

At this point I've come to terms with it.  He does good work, I get it.  After next month, my interaction with him will be minimal to nonexistent.  I'm a little anxious about the surgery because it's long--12 hours or so.  And the recovery is painful.  I just need to focus on the tummy tuck and the new boobs.  Work has been great about giving me the time I need, but I have a feeling I'll be back online by the week after surgey.  Unless I'm in so much pain that I can't bear it.  It's totally professional to send out work emails and participate on conference calls while on pain meds, right?

On another note, I saw Guardians of the Galaxy a few weeks ago.  I saw this movie in Maine with Aaron, two of my nieces and my nephew.  The movie's opening scene is a boy listening to music on his walkman.  As the shot pans out, it's clear he's sitting in a chair in a hospital.  I got a little apprehensive at this point.  His grandfather comes by to say that his mom wants to talk to him.  His mom is dying.  Of cancer.  Cue my waterworks as one of my worst fears is presented on the screen (although I wasn't impressed by the makeup job on the mom).  Never mind that since becoming a mom I'm a total sap, please show one of the things I'm most worried about and I become a mess.  And this is a movie about aliens and other creatures.  We were in a dark theater and I didn't want to freak out my nieces and nephew, so the tears were just streaming down my face--I was able to contain my sobs until much later.  This happened at the beginning and end of the movie.  Holy crap, I wish I'd had some warning about that.

With this recent memory floating in my head, I had a bit of a scare this week.  Every time I have some ache or pain my mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario.  While in Maine, I got some stomach bug for the day.  I still don't know what caused it--I ran a 10k that morning and felt fine and got home from that and it went downhill from there.  Nobody else in the house was afflicted. I'd been having pelvic pain on and off for a few weeks and I finally reached out to my oncologist, who told me to reach out to the surgeon that had removed my ovaries.  We talked about my symptoms and she sent me in for a CAT scan.  She suspected it might be appendicitis or kidney stones.  During the CAT scan they kept asking me about having my ovaries removed and why.  It was strange and of course led me to think that they had found something BAD.  Why do they keep asking questions?

I waited the rest of the day for a phone call with the news.  I was trying to prepare myself mentally for the worst.  I never got a call back, so I called the surgeon first thing the next morning.  The staff was really apologetic and I finally got a call--the scan was clean.  Appendix was fine, no kidney stones, I was just a little backed up (sorry for the TMI).  Phew.  The NP did say I might want to let my oncologist know that they found a bony island in the scan and the oncologist might want me to get a bone density test.  The NP stressed repeatedly that this was probably nothing. I looked up bony islands and my stomach dropped again.  Sure they can be nothing, but it can also mean the cancer has metastasized.  I immediately emailed my oncologist and she responded within the minute letting me know she was not worried.  I'd just had a bone density test a few months ago.  Now I feel okay.

Which leads to my ongoing frustration about my post-treatment life: At what point will I stop assuming the worst?  Right now it feels like never.  Thankfully, I feel great most of the time.  But my mind can't help but go to the worst case scenario when I'm not feeling 100%.

One aside: The CAT scan technician was an Irish woman with a really thick accent.  I understood about every third word she said.  I thought she said she'd had breast cancer when she was 21 (I guessed her to be maybe a few years older than me now).  She'd had a mastectomy on the breast with cancer, but never had the other breast removed.  She had never been tested for the BRCA gene but there's a strong family history of both breast and ovarian cancer.  She told me I was really brave for having my ovaries removed.  Honestly, I was a little insulted.  I'm not brave--I'm doing what I need to do to put my mind at rest and not have to live in fear for the rest of my life.  I'm going to live in fear anyway.  I don't really find that brave.

A visit with the plastic surgeon

Every once in a while I think, “Maybe I shouldn’t share so much.”  Especially when I’m moping about things post-surgery.  Because when I read some of posts after the fact, I sound pretty pathetic.  But you need to understand—I don’t like taking breaks.  I find getting things done and being active relaxing.  So being forced to sit and do nothing is very frustrating.  I’m told that not everybody is like this.  Now imagine having to live with somebody such as myself and you can imagine some of the challenges that Aaron faces as my husband.

Earlier this week I had a trip to the plastic surgeon.  As you know from past posts, this is always a fun experience for me (please note my sarcasm).  As somebody that likes to connect with people, I get frustrated when I don’t.  I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t smile.  Ever.  I have to remind myself that I don’t have to like him.  He does amazing work, that’s the point.  I don’t dislike him as much as I did when I first met him, but I still dislike him.  To make matters worse, this visit was…awkward.  He took pictures, which was uncomfortable.  He did that at my initial visit, but he wanted updates.  Everyone's staring at you, you feel violated.  I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  Needless to say, I more than earned a glass of wine that night.

A prize for my visit to the plastic surgeon

 

The surgery is tentatively on for August 18.  I'm just waiting to get the confirmation from the surgeons.  They will move fat and tissue from my belly and these will be my new boobs.  Some people have asked if I have enough fat for this.  It's very sweet of you to say so, but the answer is yes.  The plastic surgeon got a good feel of my fat yesterday too.  To his credit, he did say they’d be small.  A little tummy tuck and a lift?  Sweet.

This recovery will be the most difficult one out of all the previous surgeries.  It’s four to five days in the hospital.  I really hope I have a better roommate this time around.  Similar to last time, I won’t be picking anything up for two weeks.  He said to expect to lay low for about four weeks.  I keep telling myself I’ll be better this time around, but who am I kidding?  It will be so weird to be in the hospital for that long.  If I’m lucky I’ll be home earlier.  Although since I’m probably a low readmit risk, I’m a good opportunity for the hospital to make money.  The last sentence is a joke for those of us in healthcare.

Eventually I’m going to run out of things to talk about that are cancer-related.  Really the only thing left is my reconstruction at this point (hopefully).  I imagine I’ll do a post when I hit my anniversary too. Which is a good segue to a post I wrote a few weeks ago about my new blog—book reviews.  Let me know what you think!