Monday Musings About Mastopexy…

On Friday I had my last big (haha, no, just regular size!) breast reconstruction surgery and it went well.  I was more nervous than about the previous surgeries, mostly because of the complications I’d had, I guess.  I talked my wonderful plastic surgeon down to just cutting open my right boob to exchange the temporary saline-filled expander for a permanent silicone implant.  Okay, that was a little dramatic.  There’s actually just an incision under my boob.  I’m back to wearing the surgical bra and have a drainage tube in, but only one this time.  A little achy and sore, but not terrible pain.

But what he also planned to do was suction some fat from my abdominal area and insert it above the implant to further soften the look.  And do what’s called a mastopexy to the left breast to perk it up a bit.  Or a lot, as the case may be.  But I stayed firm (haha, cracking myself up, may just be the pain pills!) and nixed all that because I couldn’t face the thought of developing clots or unnecessary bleeding like before.  But he did explain that I could choose to do the mastopexy at a later date if needed and it would still be covered as reconstructive surgery.  I checked with insurance and that’s true.

So then he asked me to sit up (we were in the little curtained off room where you wait before outpatient surgery), me in my paper gown, so that he could draw the incision mark under my boob with that lovely indelible marker.  And with totally detached clinical appreciation he said to me and hubby, “These are probably the best match I’ve seen with a one-sided surgery!”

I completely chose to believe that he meant my unaided boob was unbelievably perky all on its own and rather closely matched the surgically enhanced one.  So I awkwardly said, “Thank you?” and we parted to meet up later in surgery.

Then a nurse started my IV, pushed me and my gurney to an operating room where they slid me onto a table exactly the width of my hips and had me breathe into an oxygen mask a few times.   And that’s all I really remember…