Reconstruction!

Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow I travel down to the ginormous hospital in Salt Lake City for my reconstruction. Over the last few months I thought and thought about the pros and cons of having Dr. Massey perform my reconstruction. I thought about how fun it would be to travel to the eastern states. But then I thought about the headache that would come with getting the insurance to work with her, worrying about travel plans and where to stay, and whether we would have to pay for WonderfulHubby's airline ticket out of pocket. I worried about who would be able to take care of my kids for so long, and I worried about how my kiddos would handle me being gone for so long (I would have to spend two weeks there to recover before flying home). And I talked to the ladies in my support group, and there are two doctors in Salt Lake who perform the surgery, and both are covered by my insurance!

So I met with the woman doctor, Dr. June Chen back in November, and really liked her, and got the date all set. That was about the time I had my last herceptin (easy chemo) treatment, and my first "regularly scheduled" mammogram. Mammogram came back clear as can be, so no worries there. Anyways, like I said in a previous post, I decided I definitely wanted to go with the reconstruction where they use your tummy fat to rebuild it (called a DIEP). There are other options, but this seemed like the best for me, especially because my tummy is my "trouble area" as far as weight goes.

Now the last week or so, I have been a bundle of nerves. I think I was less nervous when I was going in for my mastectomy, but who's to know for sure. My memory is definitely not that clear... I think what I am worried the most about is the recovery. I have been told that the tummy tuck part of the surgery takes longer to heal than the chest. So, WonderfulHubby is taking two or three weeks off work, and then my mom is coming to stay for a week, and perhaps as that is coming to an end we will see if I need any more help. Today we have kept busy doing laundry, and making sure all the shopping and errands are done. Hopefully WonderfulHubby will get a good night's rest, because we will have to wake up around 4:15 to make sure we get to the hospital for the sign-in time they gave us, 5:30! Me, well, though I prefer getting a good night's sleep, it doesn't matter as much, because I'll be sleeping most of the day because the procedure is so long.

Oh! And Dr. Chen will be removing my porta-cath as well! Woohoo! So that's one less surgery to worry about.

Also, I went in 2 weeks ago to Dr. Okawa to get my tissue expander inflated so that my scar would be smaller. We overfilled, though didn't realize until a few hours later and she had already left the office. It hurt so bad! And the percocet barely took the edge off, and made me feel sick and dizzy! Do I had a miserable couple of days before I could go back in and have her take out the excess. Dr. Okawa was sick the next day, or she would have done it then.

So that is all for now. Keep me and my family in your prayers. I'm going to have a 3 day stay afterwards, and that will be hard on my little kiddos. Thank you!!