Tag: surgery

Today Marks One Year Since My Bilateral Mastectomy

by Tammy Myers

Year after Mastectomy_1140

One year ago at about this exact moment in time, I was being wheeled off to the first of many scary surgeries. Today was the day that I officially said goodbye to my breasts and to my body, as I had always known it. But today was also the day that I was forced to say hello to a life with cancer. I didn’t know it at the time, but today was going to be a very pivotal day in my breast cancer journey and will most likely be a day that I always remember. Looking back through the photos, I am realizing that I no longer know the young, shy, and naive woman that I am seeing. I am grateful and even somewhat proud of how strong I was in what I now know to be very scary moments, but I am also astonished at how clueless I really was about what was heading my way, which may have been a tiny blessing as well.

Read More

Infection Update

by admin

My appointment this morning with my plastic surgeon went well lots of with lots information. It turns out that I had a pretty nasty infection leading to last Sundays emergency surgery (I forget the name of the actual infection but she kept saying it was one of the bad ones and that it started at the drainage tube site. Her kind eyes confirmed she did everything she could, but there is no way she could have saved the tissue expander on that right side due to the severity of the infection. Sadly I had felt the pain in the drainage tube for a day or so, but thought it was normal and didn’t make the call. (if ever in this situation don’t make my mistake, MAKE THE CALL) Away, she was thankful I called when I did because I guess it would have gotten much worse and it could have moved further through my body.

Downside is that I’m still at kind of risk for this infection for a while. They cleaned it out good, but it was a bad one so she’s not taking any chances. More and new stronger antibiotics, and no new tissue expander or implant for 6 months, which of course makes me sad. She will plan to do a fatty tissue graft/implant to fill the hole as soon as we can, which will make it look a little better. However, if I have to have radiation then we will be waiting two months before that procedure. Again a bummer.

Read More

Emergency Surgery

by admin

The worst-case infection scenario became my reality today however it was far less then we feared surgery wise. As of 6:00 am I saw my plastic surgeon’s resident where he preceded to send images to my surgeon based on the progress made through IV antibiotic treatment and drain output. Within the hour my amazingly kind surgeon was at my bedside dressed in cute “day off” attire checking the results herself. After a bit of deliberation she decided that her fear was correct and my infection was coming from the inside and the tissue expander/spacer had to come out. Since she was a bit concerned and due to leave the state later this afternoon she jumped into action quickly and secured an OR within only a few hours.

It was a bit chaotic based on the fact that I was here alone with limited cell service however I got the message to close family and friends out and had one of my rocks Sarah Keast by my side in less then an hour. It was a bummer that I didn’t get to see my sweet and very worried hubby before the surgery, however we really want to keep Corryn away from the hospital setting so it was important he stayed with his other love. I did however finally get to greet my very sweet and teary-eyed sister Misty who flew in from Colorado late last night moments before they took me back.

Screen-Shot-2015-11-18-at-9.23.01-PM_v2Read More