Hey all,
I haven't written in quite a while. I've been living my life and there are day's weeks and months where I've forgotten that I've had cancer. Then I shower and look down and remember that "oh yeah, body part missing". But I have gotten used to it and save for rare occasions get kinda pouty.
I have always wanted to get reconstruction but I had to wait 2 years post surgery to be cleared for it. While I have had a breast removed I didn't technically have breast cancer. The kind of cancer I had is wildly unpredictable and likes to reoccur in the same place in the first 2 years of removal. With an 80% record! So far so good though. I have another MRI this week and It will be all clean, because thats what needs to happen.
I found a really good (I think) microsurgical plastic surgeon at the City of Hope. His name is James Andersen. He's a total aspergers sufferer, he won't look me in the eye, does not laugh at my hilarious jokes, but he IS very good at what he does. He is typically booked 6 months in advance so I was expecting to see him in December. I was called Thursday of last week by his office with a surgery scheduled for the 31st of May. It sort of threw me off because I was expecting a much later date. I haven't had time to mentally prepare.
I have a heavy travel schedule in late october and early november to South America where I will have to be climbing temples, squeezing through caves and macheteing through the amazon... not joking (its for work). I thought it might be better to postpone the surgery until the end of november so that I didn't have to worry about my body not having been recovered. But from what I've read your body is essentially back to regularly scheduled programing after 6 weeks.
If anyone has had any experience with DIEP recovery I would so dearly like to know how long it took you to recover and if you've had any issues with your body since. I'm so scared of that surgery because I know how complicated it is... even in the hands of someone really skilled. Im 28 so hopefully it's a little easier to bounch back?
TL;DR
Having DIEP surgery on the 31st, scared and want to know how quickly I can be climbing up a mayan temple.
Tracey, did you get my long answer to your question on FB? I think reading it might make you feel better... I'd say you COULD climb that temple in about a month (though you probably wouldn't feel like it!) But really, if all goes well, you should be feeling better probably sooner than you think... Ladies, if you've had a DIEP (or even a TRAM or Lat), I'm sure Tracey would appreciate any feedback on recovery time, and what it's like. Best of luck, Tracey - PJH