It's been over six weeks since my nipple reconstruction surgery and I'm very sorry that I haven't updated this diary in so long...I started my third year of study the week before the surgery and I now have so little time!
The surgery took place on Monday 3rd September, I received a phone call on the Friday asking me to come in on the Monday so I didn't have much time to worry about it!
I was on the morning surgery list again so turned up to the given ward at 8am. We went through the usual routine of infection swabs and consent forms and then I got into my surgical gown and waited.
I was taken down to surgery at about 11am. Although I would not be put to sleep for this surgery it was still performed in the full operating theatre, (I expected a nice relaxing room with a big comfy chair!) this was a little bit of a shock and actually made me feel a bit panicky. I think it just made the surgery a bit more serious and I was scared that it would hurt.
I was laid on the bed my chest was scrubbed with the orange cleaning solution, the surgeons then drew where they would make their incisions. The surgery wasn't done by my usual surgeon, it was done by two of his colleagues who were lovely and very skilled, but again I had been expecting the man himself so this threw me a bit.
I was then injected with local anaesthetic around where the marks had been drawn. This is normally quite a painful injection but, due to the mastectomy, I can't actually feel that area anyway so I didn't feel a thing. After they had given the anaesthetic some time to kick in the surgeons set to work. The whole op, including stitching up, took only 40mins! I was completely at ease once I had got used to the set up and the surgeons chatted away to me which was nice.
When they had finished they stuck a huge bit of horrendous blue foam over each nipple and told me I had to wear it for 6weeks! I looked like Madonna! (It turned out ok in the end as I was allowed to take it off to shower after the first week and you couldn't really see it under a bra)
After the op I was taken back up to the ward and then I was free to leave immediately (no such luck for the lady in the next bed who had a huge freak out in the operating theatre and demanded a general anaesthetic!) I felt absolutely fine, no pain and no poorly feeling as I hadn't had any medication. I went back to work the next day, no bother.
On the Wednesday (two days post op) I got home from work at the GP to find my left breast was completely purple with lots of little red vessels all over. HUGE panic and rush to my non-work GP who sent me off to A&E. After a couple of hours wait in A&E I was seen by the surgical registrar and then by the lady who actually did the surgery. The consensus was that it was most likely bruising but I was given a week of antibiotics just to be safe and asked to come back on Friday to see how things were going. Things were looking loads better on Friday so I was given the all clear.
I had to attend the dressing clinic at the two week mark to have the dressings removed and at that point everything was looking great. After that I just had to keep wearing the blue foam to ensure the nipples didn't get squashed. I stopped wearing the foam a week ago and my nipples look brill! They have flattened a little but just to normal nipple size and I'm very happy with the result. Now I just have to have the nipple tattooed to make it darker than the areola and I will be complete!
The surgery took place on Monday 3rd September, I received a phone call on the Friday asking me to come in on the Monday so I didn't have much time to worry about it!
I was on the morning surgery list again so turned up to the given ward at 8am. We went through the usual routine of infection swabs and consent forms and then I got into my surgical gown and waited.
I was taken down to surgery at about 11am. Although I would not be put to sleep for this surgery it was still performed in the full operating theatre, (I expected a nice relaxing room with a big comfy chair!) this was a little bit of a shock and actually made me feel a bit panicky. I think it just made the surgery a bit more serious and I was scared that it would hurt.
I was laid on the bed my chest was scrubbed with the orange cleaning solution, the surgeons then drew where they would make their incisions. The surgery wasn't done by my usual surgeon, it was done by two of his colleagues who were lovely and very skilled, but again I had been expecting the man himself so this threw me a bit.
I was then injected with local anaesthetic around where the marks had been drawn. This is normally quite a painful injection but, due to the mastectomy, I can't actually feel that area anyway so I didn't feel a thing. After they had given the anaesthetic some time to kick in the surgeons set to work. The whole op, including stitching up, took only 40mins! I was completely at ease once I had got used to the set up and the surgeons chatted away to me which was nice.
When they had finished they stuck a huge bit of horrendous blue foam over each nipple and told me I had to wear it for 6weeks! I looked like Madonna! (It turned out ok in the end as I was allowed to take it off to shower after the first week and you couldn't really see it under a bra)
After the op I was taken back up to the ward and then I was free to leave immediately (no such luck for the lady in the next bed who had a huge freak out in the operating theatre and demanded a general anaesthetic!) I felt absolutely fine, no pain and no poorly feeling as I hadn't had any medication. I went back to work the next day, no bother.
On the Wednesday (two days post op) I got home from work at the GP to find my left breast was completely purple with lots of little red vessels all over. HUGE panic and rush to my non-work GP who sent me off to A&E. After a couple of hours wait in A&E I was seen by the surgical registrar and then by the lady who actually did the surgery. The consensus was that it was most likely bruising but I was given a week of antibiotics just to be safe and asked to come back on Friday to see how things were going. Things were looking loads better on Friday so I was given the all clear.
I had to attend the dressing clinic at the two week mark to have the dressings removed and at that point everything was looking great. After that I just had to keep wearing the blue foam to ensure the nipples didn't get squashed. I stopped wearing the foam a week ago and my nipples look brill! They have flattened a little but just to normal nipple size and I'm very happy with the result. Now I just have to have the nipple tattooed to make it darker than the areola and I will be complete!
RSS Feed