Probably an overshare here, and sorry it is so gross, but this was my reality for several months. Franken-boob.
Melting tissue, necrotic black areas, sutures pulling through skin. Overall badness.
I would text photos like this to Dr. Gannon on the regular. She is a saint.
During one of my trips to Dana Farber in Boston, I went to visit my amazing friend Beth, who is also a PA. Her beautiful daughter, Olivia, was born prematurely and was spending time in the NICU at Beth Israel hospital, right next door to Dana Farber... crazy, right? While I was hanging out with Beth and telling her about my stressful non-healing saga, she suggested that I find a wound care clinic to help me figure out other ways to get the darn incision to heal. I immediately started searching, and ended up finding one at a hospital in Albany. When I called, they said it would take several weeks to get an appointment. Shocker. I mean, it's not like I have an oozing hole on my chest or anything here, people. So I did my best to keep it closed until I saw them, but it really was a horrible nasty mess and a difficult waiting period.
Visiting Beth and Olivia at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, where Beth gave me the idea to find a wound clinic.
Thank goodness for smart friends!
The wound clinic doctor gave me some various creams and wound matrix materials to use, and decided to have me begin hyperbaric oxygen treatments. This is not exactly a walk in the park. You spend 3 hours a day, 5 days a week in a glass tube filled with a very high concentration of oxygen. It helps wounds to heal by delivering a higher percentage of oxygen to the tissues. The hard part is that it takes about a month to really "kick in" and start working. Well, I went faithfully to my "HBO" (hyperbaric oxygen) treatments for over a month... but in that time, the incision failed so badly that Dr. Gannon had to make the awful decision to take the implant out on the left side. It seemed to make the most sense just to get that darn tissue to heal without the weight of the implant on it, and then figure out *another* surgery later on to bring healthy tissue to the area and replace the implant. This was an incredibly difficult moment... to feel like this was an official failure; to know that I would have a completely flat, boobless chest on that side. Throughout this whole cancer process, I hadn't had that happen - there had always been at least a tissue expander there. Now this would look, and feel, super cancer-y. Tears rolled down my cheeks as Dr. Gannon removed my hard-earned implant, that I'd been fighting to keep through all of the pain, doctors visits, HBO treatments and immense aggravation for 4 months. Sniff. I pulled myself together and told myself that this would all be okay. It wasn't cancer anymore. It was now all just cosmetics. But still, it felt incredibly unfair that this was all happening to me now, after all my treatments were over and I was SUPPOSED TO BE DONE. That sentence just kept playing through my head: "I'm supposed to be done." This shouldn't be happening. But, life is unfair and shit happens. You just gotta move on.
Still making it to work and smooshing Chihuahuas in between all of my medical appointments.
Gotta keep some sense of normalcy even when part of you body is trying to fall off.
So, with the implant out and now wearing a silicone implant in my bra on that side, I continued going every day to HBO treatments. This meant a lot of stress over missing time at work in the mornings, getting the girls to daycare so early that they had to open the center 15 minutes early for me (bless their hearts), racing down to Albany, having treatment, and racing back to work for appointments. It was crazy. But I met some awesome people there, too. Charlene and Matt were my HBO techs, and they kept me laughing the whole time. They gave me funny movies to watch to kill the time, and chatted with me on the phone while I was in the chamber. It's amazing how, when you're going through something tough, having great people there with you can somehow make it fun. This seems to be a common theme throughout this journey... and a meaningful life lesson amidst the chaos.
I made the HBO tech, Char, take a picture of me in the tank on the first day of treatment.
And then she knew that I was crazy and we became fast friends.
Many women in this situation have something called a DIEP flap performed, which takes skin and fat from the belly and moves it up to make a breast. However, because I have a thin build and no substantial belly fat, Dr. Rezak talked to me about taking skin and fat from the backs of both of my thighs to reconstruct a left breast. This is called a "stacked PAP flap" procedure. There are very few surgeons who are trained and experienced enough to perform microvascular reconstruction like this, and I was excited to have found one right in Albany. After waiting to have a special CT scan to map my tissues and blood vessels, and going to see her again to review results in September, I was finally able to schedule surgery for mid-October. Phew. I was very excited to get rid of the draining hole in my chest, but also slightly terrified -- this would be my biggest surgery yet. It would involve a 10-hour surgery, 5 days in the hospital, 4 weeks out of work, and huge painful incisions on both of my thighs and my chest. From what I could tell, this was going to be the best move for me. I would have 2 healthy foobies and never have to go through another breast surgery again, God willing. But in the back of my mind there were thoughts like: what if something happened and this surgery also failed? What if the blood supply died? Then what? I'm running out of options here. I was planning to proceed with the surgery, but was silently feeling very stressed about the outcome.
Me and my sister Jess, both rocking our pixie cuts. Dang, we're sassy.
Cue my sister Jess entering the scene. About 10 days before my surgery is scheduled in Albany, she just so happens to mention to one of her doctors that I'm planning this surgery. He completely flips out that I'm having this highly specialized surgery locally, and tells her to INSIST that I go get a second opinion from one of the surgeons who helped develop breast reconstruction flap procedures in NYC, Dr. Joshua Levine. So she gets on the phone and gets me an appointment with him - TWO DAYS LATER. If you've been paying attention so far, you will notice that it typically takes about 2-3 weeks to see a new doctor. So long story short, I end up taking a last-minute day off from work and my Dad and I drive 3 hours down to NYC. We spend TWO HOURS with Dr. Levine, going over my entire history, discussing options, listening to him explain his opinions. It becomes very clear that THIS is the doctor who should be doing my surgery. He has been doing nothing but these microvascular breast flap reconstruction procedures for 11 years, and has a very high success rate. His feeling is that implants have such a high failure rate (67% over 10 years) that I should have not only the left breast reconstructed from a PAP flap, but also have my right implant removed and another PAP flap on that side. I'm amazed that he thinks I have enough tissue to accomplish this, and I'm thrilled at the prospect of having 2 fleshy foobies, no implants, just 100% my tissue. His receptionist manages to get me scheduled that afternoon for the special MRI/angiogram he needs in order to map my tissues, so we end up in the city all day and come home ready to book surgery with Dr. Levine. He also, miraculously, managed to get an infectious disease specialist on the phone while I was in his office, and came up with a plan to use specific antibiotics for me post-op that will pretty much prevent me from having another bout of C. diff colitis. (I skipped over this part of the story, but let's just say that being on 6 weeks of antibiotics while your boob incision is open makes for a VERY unhappy intestinal tract. Blech.) This alone impressed me tremendously, as I've seen several local doctors, including a GI doc, who were unable to come up with a solid plan for me. And boom - just like that - he's got it done. Amazing. This is the path I was meant to take. Huge kudos to my big sis for pushing me in this new direction and helping to make it all happen. She is amazing.
So that is where we stand: Surgery with Dr. Levine is now scheduled for October 17th down in Manhattan. I will spend 5 days in the hospital, and 9 days total in the city. It will be so hard to be away from my girls all that time, but my amazing father-in-law, Bernie, and his girlfriend Donna, will be hanging out at Chez Brennan all that time to take care of them. Kevin and my dad will take turns being with me in the city, and my friend Dean who lives there will also be able to help keep me company. My bosses have been hugely supportive of this whole Foobie Fail portion of my story, despite many hours, and now weeks, of time off from work. My friends and neighbors are once again gathering around me to offer their help and support. I am one lucky lady to have such a strong support network through all of this. I am hopeful, and actually pretty confident now, that surgery will go well, I will finally be able to move on, and have smooth sailing ahead for a good long time. Please universe...let this be the end... it is looooooong overdue.
With my beautiful girls at my vet clinic's "PetStock" festival last week.
Hopefully it is all peace, love, and good health from here on out!
