Again, to be honest the main thing i was worried about with this surgery was the same as the others - that they wouldn't be able to find a vein to put me to sleep! But I ended up having the same doctors etc as last time and she rememebered me and didn't even attempt to get one, she just arranged for them to put me to sleep in the operating room which was great and just what i needed to relax my nerves about the whole thing.
I knew that i would only be in hospital for one night with this surgery so to be honest i wasn't really worried about it at all. After all that i had been through, this really was going to be a walk in the park! The worst part about the day ended up being that i had to wait for hours before going in and when your not allowed to have any food or water I was one very grumpy girl by the time they took me down!
Immediately after the surgery when i woke all i can remember was having a really sore left shoulder and it wouldn't go away. So they gave me drugs to try and relax my muscles but i ended up in tears by the time Mat came in to see me and had to get him to rub it for me for ages to try and relieve the muscle pain. It must have been from the position they had me in during the surgery, which really shows how rough they must be with us when we're under and dead weight.
Once this pain settled down though i was pretty comfortable. My surgeon had used the same scars as last time to go in and replace the expanders so i knew that i wouldnt be able to feel pain from the incisions themselves because i'm numb on my breasts but he had re-positioned the implants so they were in a much better spot than the expanders were in so i had quite a lot of swelling and pain in the middle of my chest where i wasn't numb. As normal though i just made sure to stay on top of the pain with diagesic and panadol and it was fine.
During my other hospital stays my blood pressure was always really low and i found myself always feeling faint and quite weak but after this surgery for some reason my blood pressure was really good and i got up first thing the next morning and had a shower and got dressed and was ready to go home. Unfortunately i had to wait for hours until everything was organised for me to go, but it was a nice to have woken up feeling a bit stronger for a change.
The bra that he put on my after the surgery was pretty comfortable because it was quite tight so made me feel more secure i guess but i stopped wearing it after about 2 weeks and swapped to wireless bras mostly because the post op one was so big/high that you could see it under anything that i wore. Even now (2 months after the operation) i find that if i don't wear a bra for about 2 days my boobs get quite sore. My surgeon told me i had to start wearing bras and i believe him now. Actually his words were 'i'm giving you perky boobs so i want you to keep them that way, which means wearing a bra!' lol
Anyway, here's some photo's -
This was just before the surgery. As you can see the expanders were pretty far apart (6cm) so his plan was to bring them in closer (3cm) and also my right side expander was sitting in a different position so he had to do a lot more adjusting on this side (which is why you can see the extra texta marks).
The next 3 photos are the day after the surgery. I had waterproof dressings on them but took these photos when my Dr had taken them off to check out everything. I was really swollen for the first 2 weeks which is why they look huge in the first photo! Its amazing to think that he had just cut me open again and you can't even really tell. The middle photo shows my incision on the bottom of my breast (as he went through the original Lat dorsi incision) and the last photo shows where he went back in through the original mastectomy line and the bottom half of where my nipple used to be. Again he used the disolvable stitches but he also used some normal stitches on my right side just to give it a little bit more support. He took these out on my post op visit 2 weeks later.
My right side looks great (the left when youre looking straight at it in the photo) and it's my favourite ha ha ha but my left side isn't so good. It was never going to be as good though and i knew this so i just have to be happy with what he's been able to give me. There's a lump under my left armpit (i.e. the top of my left breast) which is the lat dorsi muscle from the reconstruction and my surgeon said that it should go down over the next 12 months of so and if it doesn't he'll try and reduce it for me so once this is fixed (either by itself or with help) i'll be even happier.
My left breast still has a little bit more 'settling' to do, and i wish that they were a bit closer together but overall i'm happy - I have 2 cancer free boobs so what more can i ask for i guess.
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