Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Boobies and Babies

Wow. What a weekend.

Friday night, Lindi came and picked up Sarah after work and they did some shopping for upcoming birthdays and baby showers.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a horrendous migraine. I took my medication, and tried to putter around the house, doing light cleaning, baking a couple of batches of bread, but by 3:00, the headache had completely taken over my entire world. Thank God for Lortab is all I can say. Lindi and Sarah came home from work and took good care of me, finishing the laundry, making BLT’s (my favorite) and just generally looking after me.

Sunday, I passed out until about 11 am, and when I woke up, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. A big one. A HUGE one. A truck with a grille that had spikes welded to the front of it for the express purpose of making me feel horrid. Yeah, that sounds about right. Anywho, I was able to get out of bed and slowly take on the day, baking a couple more batches of bread and just relaxing as much as I could.

When Lindi and Sarah got home, we all got ready and went over to one of Lindi’s employee’s baby showers. If you have never been to an authentic Mexican baby shower, you are in for a real treat. It lasted 4 hours. No, I am not kidding. We ate and laughed and I tried to understand what they were saying, and played weird games involving carrots and limes, ate some more, cut a cake, opened presents – it was a great time. I was exhausted by the time we got home, but it was okay.

Monday morning, I was awakened by Lindi with coffee and breakfast, I slipped a shirt over my head (no bra!) and we headed to the Breast Care center for my mammogram. For those of you who don’t know, my mother had a double mastectomy at age 31 for breast cancer, so I had my first mammogram at age 28. I scheduled one Monday prior to my appointment with a plastic surgeon to talk abut a breast reduction.

The University Breast Care center was wonderful. They were very kind, and it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the last time I had one done. I think their platen is bigger, so they didn’t have to do my breast films in sections, they could get it all in one shot. It still hurt, I won’t lie, but I am grateful for the technology.

Afterward, I went to the lobby, and told them I was there to see my surgeon. She actually shares the same office, which made it nice. She is a younger lady, probably in her early 40’s and does strictly re-constructive surgery – no cosmetic surgery – in her practice. She had already looked at my records, and told me that she doesn’t take every case that walks through her door, she is very selective about her patients. With that said, she told me that although I am a high risk patient, she wants to take my case and thinks a breast reduction would benefit me immensely.

Something else I learned – I am not a DD cup. Nope, no where near. Apparently, there is no such thing as a standard “cup” size from store to store. If I wore a size 0 and went into Victoria Secret, they would try to get me into a D cup to make me feel voluptuous. If I went into a Lane Bryant, they would try to get me into a D cup to make me feel smaller. The difference between those two bras are worlds apart – and neither are my true size, they are manufactuered to my perceptions. She told me I am a size G. A FREAKIN’ SIZE G! No wonder I have headaches!

She told me that I would need to quit smoking. She would not consider surgery without me quitting. Apparently, smoking interferes with how I would heal. She told me that if she found out within a month of my surgery that I had smoked, she would cancel the surgery, that is how serious she is about it. She told me that I can’t smoke for at least 2 months after surgery as well. She didn’t say I had to quit altogether, but I think I would be rather dumb to quit for 3 months and then start right up again.

Bad news: She doesn’t think she will be able to save my milk ducts or nerves. She will try, but they are too big. So, no sensation and no breastfeeding.

The surgery itself will be painful and she will keep me in the hospital overnight at least, possibly two days because I am such a high risk. That’s okay by me.

Lots of things to consider. No decisions to be made. My insurance company needs to sign off on it. I need to get letters from all my doctors agreeing that this needs to be done. It’s a process. I’m still in the questioning phase, so any input would be helpful.

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