Diep Surgery on Tuesday!

I can’t believe the time is already here. It feels like yesterday I was complaining about how far away this date was, and now I’m like “where did time go??” People have been curious about what this surgery entails, so here is my explanation:

DIEP Flap Surgery

A layman aka me, explaining DIEP flap. To me, DIEP flap is the most natural approach to reconstruction. My surgeon, Dr. Potter, will only use my tissue. It will entail an incision from one hip all the way to the other hip. Kind of like the face of a jack-o-lantern as Javi describes it. She will then move that tissue (flap) and fat up to my chest, for my new Goobs (gut boobs)! She will then reconnect all my blood vessels in chest and abdomen to keep the skin alive. This takes the talent of a microsurgeon to do this! (Dr. Potter is a microsurgeon). She will then pull my abdomen skin down, to sew the happy face of the jack-o-lantern up. There’s a huge possibility my belly button will shift or change in appearance (the jack-o-lantern’s nose). After my endometriosis surgery, my belly button changed in appearance and it made me like it even more! So hopefully that will happen with this surgery as well.

My new Goobs will look like two nipple-less mounds (I lost my nipples in my mastectomy). I will never have what formerly looked like breast again. These shouldn’t sag, they’ll just stay in the mound position. Since it is made with my own body fat, they will go up and down with weight, thank goodness for me, my belly fat has always been stubborn, so not expecting them to go down much in size. If so, I will be giving them the side eye.

The Goob size is pre-determined. I don’t have a choice in the size, it is whatever my body is going to give to me. Dr. Potter is predicting a small C. That would be perfect for me! I’m hoping for a B or C, definitely don’t want to go back to the land where I was before. I told her, my goal is to buy cheap clothes!!! I want to buy a swim suit from target, sports bras that only cost $10-$20 and you don’t have to worry about bounce, and dresses where I can fill the pocket and not bust out of them. So that’s her goal and she thinks we will make the mark, but once again, all pre-determined by my body. I can always go in for revision surgeries after this, if we need to adjust the size (I honestly don’t think I will do that, unless if they come out huge).

Recovery?

It’s going to be a beast of a recovery. Sometimes I think I’m crazy for doing this, but then I had some cousins say, “crazy strong!” So I now keep telling myself, I’m crazy strong!

Here are bulleted points for my recovery:

• The week before and after, I cannot consume any chocolate or caffeine as that will mess with my blood vessels. I did not realize how much I stress eat with chocolate until I couldn’t this week - no chocolate chip cookies, no chocolate chips in peanut butter, no yasso mint chocolate chip yogurt cream bars, no hagaan daz bars, no dark chocolate peanut butter cups, no chocolate chips, etc. Good news is, I am surviving and I have turned to eating strawberries with homemade whip cream as my treat (without chocolate chips poured on top)!

• I should be eating 80 grams of protein/day leading up to surgery and post surgery for optimal healing. I feel like that is so much protein! I’ve learned, I’m not a big protein eater from this experience. I’ve ate more eggs, meat, and yogurt this season, than I have my whole life!

• I’ve already done my EKG and CT scan to clear myself for surgery. Now that I have a history of cancer, the CT scan did show some things that would have previously been not a big deal, but now that means more imaging after my surgery to confirm it’s not a big deal. So I have an MRI scheduled for Nov. 4th, pending if I can lay flat by then. (If I get around to it, I’ll share with ya’ll that adventure in getting my CT results).

• Dr. Potter is predicting my surgery to be about 4 hours. Right now the surgery is scheduled for 11am, but we don’t get official time until Monday afternoon from the hospital.

  • We will not be sending out text messages to keep you updated on how I’m doing, since the hospital will be doing that for us!!! Thank you so much hospital for this creation! (insert your own happy dance gif)

  • Antonio will write a post Tuesday mid morning with the number you can text to keep you updated on my progress, if you want to stay in the know.

  • Antonio will then take over the posting for a bit.

• I will spend the first night in the hospital in the ICU or the IMCU. Just means I need acute care after the surgery. I will spend more nights in the hospital if they deem it medically necessary, but right now, just one night. I have a feeling I might be two, but I also thought that with my DMX and I was discharged that day.

• My caregiver has to be present at discharge to get wound care instructions. It was recommended we record the directions because it is a lot and people tend to forget what they are supposed to do when they get home. Oh boy! So my mom and Antonio will both be there and video taping it.

• I will have 4-6 drains. woot woot. My goal is to remove them asap but they can’t be removed until I produce less than 30 ml or less of fluid in 24 hours for two days in a row. The longest the doctor wants to keep them in for is 3 weeks. Unfortunately, with my DMX, it took the full three weeks… (insert your own dooms day gif here)

• I have to stay in a hunch back position for the first 1-3 weeks, depending on how quickly my incisions heal. With that being said, I will have to use a walker to help me walk! Can we just say, pimp my ride?! (insert your own image here of a walker, ha! I’m envisioning tennis balls and a horn)

  • The walker might have influenced our Halloween costumes for this year!

  • That also means I have to sleep sitting up. I’m not able to straighten my body until the incision is healed. Good thing I used to sleep sitting up with acid reflux, so that shouldn’t be a problem for me.

• I cannot use my arms for the first 1-2 weeks.

• Can’t lift weight for the first 4 weeks or any repetitive movements, so no folding laundry for a month. Bummer.

• I still have to do my Levanox shots. However, with this surgery, it is my surgeon’s protocol that all her patients do these shots, so I’m no longer special with this accommodation. Since I’ll have major wounds in my abdominal region, the shots this time will go in my legs. I’m hoping they won’t hurt as bad and I’m hoping I’ll be able to stab myself in the leg. If not, the OC’s are on stand by!

• I’m going to be more aggressive with my poop medicine so hopefully I won’t have to experience that horrendous first poop like I had with my last surgery. I don’t think that experience would be fun with a full on hip to hip incision. No thank you! Already taking my colace!!

What is keeping me grounded? The friends that I’ve talked to who have done this surgery in the past. Who would have ever thought that the one year I worked at Valley View Elementary (12 years ago), would be some of my support people getting me through this surgery today? It’s annoying that so many of us have had breast cancer, but at least I have them to help me get through this. None of them were able to sugar coat this experience, they all said it was hard and miserable, but how you feel afterwards is totally worth it. Each day it gets better and better. So if I’m wanting to curse out everyone I see the first day, that is okay, because the second day, it might only be half the people I see. And the numbers will get lower and lower each day. So you might now want to me the first couple of days, ha! Of the people I talked to, none of them regretted it and each of them had their own minor complications that came with this surgery as well. So this surgery is going to be hard, there are going to be ups and downs, and I am going to make it through! It’s just a small chapter of my life and I’m excited to write about the tales that will follow!

We are putting a huge support system in place not only for me but for my caregivers as well. It is going to take a lot of work. My mom did not bat an eye when friends volunteered to come stay with me to help. So I have two friends flying in at different times in October to relieve my mom and to bring me good company! I’m looking forward to their humor, but not the laughter that will come with it. It is going to hurt so bad to laugh! Javi also adores both of these people so he is looking forward to hanging with them as well. Antonio also enjoys their company!

If you live near by and want to help with meals, we would love that. It was so incredibly helpful with my mastectomy. With my mastectomy, Antonio thought he would have bandwidth to make dinner because cooking is his love language and he loves to cook, but managing Javi, working, and household chores, time was more limited than he thought.

So, here’s our meal train if interested.

Just remember I’m grain free, so no gluten, rice, or corn. I know, it’s a pain in the a##, but that’s me! To help make it easier, think about a protein and two vegetable sides. If you want to make a pasta meal, Banza pasta is delicious. You can find it at HEB. Please check ingredients before you use it to make sure no gluten or wheat is in it especially if using a marinade or dressing. No desserts necessary. I’m trying to limit sugar to reduce the inflammation.

If you don’t want to make a meal but want to drop something off, we will always take fruit or vegetables that are already clean, chopped and ready to eat!

We also learned we liked the company in short chunks. So you are welcome to drop the food off at the door and leave, or come join in on the fun for about 15-20 minutes.

We can never say it enough, thank you all for all the love and support you have given us. I can’t wait for the day when I’m able (and have time) to write each one of you a thank you note letting you know what an important place you hold in our hearts. Thank you.