Anna 2.0 - Post 2

Sorry to leave y'all hanging. I had most of this written, and then life (in the form of 4 kids, a husband, laundry, and dishes) happened before I got it posted.

The plan worked out like most plans do - that is, not at all how you planned them to.

Being BRCA2 positive put me at about an 87% chance of having breast cancer at some point.  Surgery isn't the right path for everyone. Even people who are positive. But I KNEW it was the right thing for me. Maybe I have a different outlook because my mom died when I was so young? Maybe it was because of Charlotte's experience? I don't know but it was right for me.

Even knowing that, sitting there in the operating waiting room with Travis was one of the scariest moments of my life. I kept thinking about how healthy I was. How I didn't have any current health problems, any symptoms. It was hard to sit there and wait to be called in for surgery that maybe I didn't even need to have. It was hard to keep from freaking out and falling apart. I'm so grateful for my husband being there. He kept me sane.

DIEP flap reconstruction is a fairly involved surgery. The breast surgeon did her part in about 2 hours. She sliced each breast open and removed the nipple and all of the breast tissue. (I keep imagining a raw chicken breast looking chunk sitting on a counter someplace. Is that crazy?)

Then the plastic surgeon took over. His part took about 8 hours. He had to use a microscope to link up blood supplies from the tissue he took from my stomach and placed in my breasts. And he had to give me my tummy tuck.

He had to give me a new belly button since my old one was part of the saggy skin he cut off. My belly button is kind of like an under-mounted sink - he made kind of a cone out of skin and tissue and before he sewed up the belly incision, while everything was open, he cut a hole and sewed the cone to the inside. Eventually, when the scars fade and everything heals, it will look like it's always been there. Except that it feels about 3 inches too high, which is weird. (I guess that's what you get when you have 4 kids? Your bellybutton sags way down?)

After surgery I spent the rest of Monday, all of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday in the ICU. They moved me to a regular floor for Wednesday night and Thursday, and I came home Friday. I had 6 JP drains in, two under each arm and two below the incision in front. JP drains are awful. With 6 of them, all I could do was wear them on a lanyard around my neck. I felt like I had tubes coming out of me everywhere. I was constantly afraid that I'd snag a tube on something and rip one out. I realize they are a necessary evil, but they are dreadful. (After 2 weeks, they took out 5 of them. Going from 6 to 1 was a DREAM! You can hide 1 under your clothes and feel reasonably normal.)

Eleanor had Megan, Jared, and Kate at her house (she kept them for 3 weeks total, because she's amazing like that!). And my wonderful friends Amy and Jen took care of William all week. I couldn't have done without them.

Early Sunday afternoon we noticed that one of the breasts didn't look right, and I ended up in the ER. It had developed a blood clot, and my plastic surgeon came back in and did another surgery. The flap wasn't salvageable, so he had to put in a spacer (the first step in doing implants) in that side. I spent Sunday night and Monday in the hospital.

My friend Holly was to fly in on Sunday afternoon. Travis was going to pick her up, but we were nervous about leaving me here alone (I don't do well on pain meds) so my friend Tammy was planning on coming over to stay with me. When we realized that we had to go to the ER, Tammy ended up taking William over night and going to the airport to get Holly instead. I'm so grateful for her, for just jumping in and helping when we needed it.

Ever since I came home the second time, things have slowly been getting better. Holly was here for a week, taking care of me and William. It was great to have her here and I'm grateful for her help. We looked through old scrapbooks and yearbooks and found lots of forgotten pictures of people from high school. We ate Ritters and hung out in our pjs. We didn't do any mud masks, though. That'll have to wait until next visit.

After Holly left, Suzanne flew in. She helped me get ready for the kids to come home. I went to the Doctor and he took out 5 of the 6 drains. That's really when I started feeling better. It was too hard to do anything with all of them in, but one felt totally manageable. The kids came home and Suzanne stayed for another week and a half. She just left and although I don't feel anywhere near 100%, I am functional. Tired all the time, and sore, and I still have to be careful how much I lift, but overall pretty good.