We Begin Again...

Friday, June 27 was the date that reconstruction began again for me. If you've been following this blog since the beginning you probably already know that we tried to do "mastectomy with reconstruction" when I first had the tumor removed, meaning they placed a tissue expander at the mastectomy site right after the breast tissue was removed in the hopes of expanding the skin during chemotherapy. For a reason still unknown the incision at the mastectomy site would not heal after the surgery, and we had to remove the tissue expander so that I could move forward with chemotherapy.

Now that the chemo is all over (and I'm cancer-free), we are trying the tissue expander again. Going into this, there were essentially two options:

1. Get the tissue expander placed again, and hope that the incision heals normally. Since I'm not going through the trauma of a mastectomy or trying to fight off cancer this time around, there is hope that it will work without any other interventions.
2. The most likely culprit of the incision not healing was lack of blood flow at the incision site, so the doctor also said we could perform a "lat flap" procedure where they take a portion of my shoulder muscle and tunnel it through my body, bringing it around to the mastectomy site. It remains attached to the muscle in my back so it increases blood flow in the area. 

The second option is a much more invasive procedure, and would likely put some limitations on my range of motion and strength in the future when doing Olympic weightlifting, CrossFit, and triathlons, and for those reasons I decided that I wanted to try the first option again. There is no guarantee it will work, and if it doesn't then I go back for another surgery and we do Option 2.

So far the recovery has gone well, and it seem to be healing correctly. It's only five days after the surgery, so I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'm getting there.

As I am going through this, I also have a friend from high school who discovered that she carries the BRCA gene mutation, which puts her at a seriously high risk of developing breast cancer (I do not have the gene, which is good news for my other boob and for all the women I am related to). Many women in her family have lost their lives to the disease, and she made the courageous decision to get a preventive bilateral mastectomy. The reason I'm telling you this is that she did a TON of research into the mastectomy procedure and the reconstructive process, so I'll share links to her blog here in case you are curious about the medical side of the procedure.

Mastectomy 101 Part 1: Let's Talk About Nipples

Mastectomy 101 Part 2: Breast Reconstruction and Expansion

Mastectomy 101 Part 3: A Body That Will Never Be the Same

Mine is different from hers--I was unable to decide whether I would keep my nipples since my breast cancer tumor was very close to the nipple and it would be risky to leave the tissue (there could be residual cancer cells in the area). She is opting for a "nipple-sparing" mastectomy, while I had mine removed. I will probably eventually get a 3D tattoo that will resemble a real nipple. As she talks about in Part 3, my body will really never be the same. The best I can hope for is that both sides look pretty similar, and under my clothes people won't notice the difference.

Here's the hoping the healing process goes better this time around!