Bitter Sweet Day

Janeen and I headed out today for her pre-op with her general surgeon then over to the hospital for her first blood banking.  I will explain what this means in laymen's terms and not try and dazzle you all with my new vocabulary. That would be doctor talk. Janeen is having a prophylatic mastectomy and Dr. Robert Cole is the surgeon for this portion of Janeen's surgery.  Dr. Cole will separate the breast tissue from the skin and underlying muscle and remove as much as possible.  This area extends from under the collarbone to the bottom of the rib cage and from the breastbone in the middle of the chest to the underarm.  Janeen has declined nipple sparing so the nipple and areola will also be removed.  The good news, he will not touch lymph nodes under her arms as she DOES NOT HAVE CANCER.  He will however do a small lymph biopsy just to make sure there are no harmful cells present.  The biopsy report will be completed while they continue on with what was once to be a 12 hr. surgery to a possible 16 to 18 hr. surgery.  Hence the title of this post. Yes, there were tears for both of us but Dr. Cole was so caring and said the time line had changed because he wanted me to be prepared, as he will not rush through this proceedure nor will the rest of the team.  You see, once her breasts are removed two other doctor's have been working on her stomach.  Yes. her stomach will now become two breasts.  Dr. Orringer, the plastic surgeon and Dr. Granzow the micro-surgeon will be transplanting her stomach to her chest.  It is still so hard for me to try to explain this proceedure but Janeen has reason to worry and be fearful this is major.  In order for these doctors to do this Janeen will have to have an abdominal blood vessel mapping done and that is scheduled for Aug. 23rd.  Dr. Granzow told us 9 months ago he would like 7 good blood vessels for each breast but 2 good vessels would keep a breast alive.  Should this part of the surgery not be successful her breast will die within the first 72 hrs.  after surgery.  Because the surgery is so long sometimes they can see while the surgery is going on that the first breast blood supply was not sufficient and will have to go back and fix what they had just finished.  So enough bitter........We then went to the hospital for her Blood Banking.  She gave 1 unit of blood today that is about 450 cc's.  She will repeat this Blood Banking on Aug. 23rd.  She has been taking large doses of iron and vitamin c and this blood will be put back in to her during the surgery and is suppose to help in a quicker recovery.  Nice plump red blood cells ready to go do their job.  She didn't feel very good when we left and that is perfectly normal but after an hour on the freeway home she was up for a little retail therapy.  That's my girl.  We both came home with some new prizes and a truck for who else..."baby jack". So after all of this I must add we laughed so hard today I thought I'd crash the car.  It was laughter, tears then more laughter then more laughter and then more laughter.  Not bad for one day.  The sweet part of today is what we will remember when all is said and done.  Janeen is a trooper and she has come so far during the past 9 months.  She's ready to get the show on the road. I'm also ready.

To be continued.................Barb