Plastic Surgeon

March 4.

This was the day I first met the plastic surgeon, Mark Jensen. He and Dr Titensor are in the same building, offices right next to each other and collaborate a lot with their patients. I will say it felt very weird to walk into that office. A lot of pamphlets and flyers on Botox, breast augmentation, a lot of aesthetical things. Knowing I was there for a very different reason was a little humbling.. and I guess I worried what people thought, sitting in the waiting room and seeing me come in. However, this is my journey and I do know that he works with a lot of cancer patients so maybe they were in the same boat, feeling the same feelings I was, and are just like me. 

We were first taken back into the room and they had me change into a gown. I guess it is standard protocol in their office to take chest photos each time you go in. I thought that It was weird and slightly uncomfortable at first. But it's nice to have photos to compare, I guess?  Dr Jensen was brief. He was nice and all but very much in and out of the room, allowing the assistant to handle any questions that I had. We opted for double mastectomy with reconstruction, So they explained the process on that. They were hoping to do a nipple and skins bearing surgery, assuming the cancer hadn't spread too far. That sounded great to me. They explained the process of putting the breast expanders in, and showed me what that would look like. Basically there is a mesh pouch that gets sewn onto my chest wall and the expander sits in that pouch. That pouch will assimilate into my skin and be there forever. The expander pouch will slowly be filled with saline over time until I get to be the size I want to be. Then they stop filling it and do a transfer surgery where they take the expander out and put an implant in. It will be what they call a gummy bear implant so it is not filled with fluid, it is more like a gummy, pliable substance. Again, the strange ness hit me. They did say that since I am a cancer patient, they will follow up with me every 5 years after the transfer surgery to make sure the implants are not causing problems, and insurance covers anything that needs to be done for the rest of my life. That part was a relief! 

*This post was created on May 1, I tried to remember and document what I could.

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