Meeting with Surgeon

 

So, the long awaited meeting with Dr F whom I last saw in December.


He examined me - doesn't seem to be anything wrong, or indeed anything right - no comment.  I just have to massage the huge lump (bruising apparently) in the right breast each night so it will go down.  I have been doing and it is going down a bit.

He took photos of me again and was very excited that I'd lost 5kg, more excited about that than anything else in fact.

He explained that he couldn't do anything for me until one year after the radiotherapy had finished - 8th Jan 2015 (this he had said right from the start).  However, he is now saying that lipomodelling is not advised for breast cancer patients and he thinks he will have problems getting it approved by the Cancer Commission.  If he can't do that procedure, the only option is an internal prothesis but this may pose a problem in that it's difficult to re-operate on an area that has already been made fragile and I may have problems with the closure of the incisions.  He also made it clear that it was my choice and I may, at that point, not want to do anything.

I asked him about skin sagginess if a lot of fat was extracted from my stomach and he said that he wouldn't take too much and he'd also take it from the hips too, so it shouldn't be a problem but he did say that he'd be happy to do a tummy tuck if I wanted!!!  Anything is possible, he said.  Yeah, I thought, if you have the money.

He suggested that when I next see the oncologist, I broach the subject with her and sort of start a campaign to get the procedure approved, but not to tell the oncologist that he'd told me about it.  What????

I don't know whether to go somewhere else (more drs appointments, more getting my tits out, telling my story), start a campaign, get lots of info from various sources regarding this and campaign the oncologist and the surgeon but then I think, surely it shouldn't be like that?  Should it?

lipomodelling, an important advance in breast surgery

We finished our meeting with all the platitudes - get back to your normal life now, remember that you were "this close" to a mastectomy, remember that you were "this close" to chemotherapy, so you have to consider yourself lucky.  Live your life tranquil and see you next year.  He didn't seem bothered that I hadn't had the courage to look at my "breasts" but he was keen for me to live my life for my husband and my children.

I am SO pissed off.  Right at the beginning, when I made my choice, I made it in the knowledge that lipomodelling would be the next step and yes, one year after radiotherapy.  Each time I see this guy, it seems to be less and less likely, he seems to be backtracking each time.  Maybe he's trying to prepare me for a negative outcome.  But how the hell can I live my life 'tranquil' when I'm in such a flux and not knowing about the future?

I cannot, simply cannot envisage a life when I have to stick a piece of plastic in an sort of bra (not even a real one) for the rest of my life.  Whenever I think about the summer I get hot and cold thinking about not being able to go on the beach in a swimming costume, about wearing loose summer clothes, about going swimming with my kids.  I look GROSSSSSSS!  I have barely one tit.  My body is lopsided and weird.  This is a real setback.

So now I'm going to live my life tranquil for 9 months.  Yeah of course I am.

What, dear reader, would you do?