Oh Great - Another F***ing Growth Experience!

Or - why Debbie has been such an emotional and angry bitch lately.......

(Warning – this is a bitter and expletive laced post)

May 7 was the day of my reconstructive surgery.  It was supposed to be the “good part,” the part where I would get a new breast and cancer would truly be a distant memory. The breast reconstruction was to be reward for fighting a long hard battle against cancer and winning.  In fact, when they did my mastectomy, I didn’t even cry because I knew that in the end, I would end up with a pretty decent updated pair of breasts. No matter what anyone tells you – at my age better perkier tits sound pretty damn good.  No one ever told me to expect anything different.  Not once.  I was beside myself excited as surgery day approached.

I’d had to wait longer that I hoped to get my surgery because of the horrible burn from the radiation, but once it was healed enough we set the date for May 7.  It took longer than I hoped because my radiation burn was like a third degree burn from a fire, it was AWFUL.  But it healed.  No one ever said that the radiation damage would keep me from getting a new breast.  Not once.

The week before the surgery, Dr. Asshat (as I will forever refer to him) changed his mind about how he was going to go about the surgery – rather than using my excess stomach tissue, he decided that he would use back tissue instead for a “better result.”  I was very disappointed and pushed back a little on that because I was excited about getting a little flatter stomach (who wouldn’t be!) but whatever, he is the doctor right? And I have been trusting doctors all along so fine we will do it his way.  He did not say that I would not get a breast.

In fact, the way the surgery is explained is that you wake up with a mound that is the size of your other breast but will need “perfecting” in an outpatient surgery later.  They show you before and after photos of various procedures and it makes sense that some tweaking needs to happen.  No one ever showed me a photo of hideousness or told me that I would not get basically what they were showing me – a nice mound roughly the size of my other breast, that would just need perfecting – basically making a new nipple and taking care of some scarring.  All of that made total sense.  No one ever told me that this would not be me.  

Now you may not recall, I had a lift and reduction on the left side that Dr. Asshat did at the time of my mastectomy – it was justified because I could have gotten some serious back problems from being really lopsided for too long and since in the long run it would probably get done anyway, it made perfect sense.  I gotta say it looks pretty damn good so I was expecting a similar result. Granted it isn’t perfect, but I didn’t start with perfect, but it was pretty good and really the right size for me and that is what I thought I would get on the right side.  I was very excited.  When I waved good bye to Martha Jo as they took me to surgery, I was happier than I have been in a year and a half.  The end of this ordeal was in sight. *BTW I had no reason to suspect that Asshat didn’t know what he was doing – he came highly recommended by the other members of my kick-cancer’s-ass medical team.

Hours later, I wake up in recovery and I immediately look down at the right side of my chest because - well who wouldn’t!  A new breast was supposed to be here - but What the F***! There isn’t a new breast!  What was there was just some hideous lumpiness and some odd skin with nothing it same as was there after the mastectomy.  What the Fuck!??  So I ask the nurse “Where is my breast?”  She said “Well you had a mastectomy.”  I said “I had a mastectomy in Fucking March of last year – I was supposed to wake up with a breast!”  She says “I don’t know but you need to calm down.”  I say “don’t tell me to calm down; I want to know where my fucking breast is!”  She says she will see if the doctor is still around.  He isn’t.   Nurse is very kind but she does not know what to do.  So she asks me what she should do (what?)  So I tell her to find someone who knows why I don’t have a breast and get my friend who is waiting. 

Some flunky doctor who helped in surgery comes in.  He has no answers and basically says Dr. Asshat will have to see me in the morning.  At this point I am completely freaked out.  Martha Jo tried her best to calm me as Dr Asshat had told her that things went fine.  (Define “Fine”!)  In addition, it didn’t help that Dr. Asshat also didn’t get my post op pain meds ordered somehow so I was getting temporary shot of something that made me projectile vomit.  Lovely.   Between that and wondering where the hell my breast was, I got very little sleep that night.

First thing in the morning Dr. Asshat shows up and my first question is “Where is the breast I was supposed to get?”  He mumbles something about the radiation damage and says we will just had to reduce the other side some more  I say “NO, that was not the plan” and he just looked pissed and said “we will have to discuss it.”  I said, “I don’t understand why I didn’t wake up with a breast.”  He says nothing about that but asks how the pain is.  I tell him that it was ok now but would have been nice to have a decent pain med order before 2 am.  He just looks at me and walks out.

I was worked up most of the day, but finally fall asleep at 9.  At midnight some jackass orderly wakes me up by turning every light in the room on and shouting “Well, you’re getting a new roommate!”  I said “I don’t give a shit, turn off the effing light over my bed.”  He bitches to the nurse who comes in and asks what the problem is.  “The problem? He woke me up when I finally got to sleep.”  She just says “oh.”  Then they bring the new roommate who is a drug addict trying to get oxycotin from the nurses.  They of course don’t give it to her so she spends the whole night wandering around chanting because she is in some kind of wicked withdrawal.  Apparently they had to keep her overnight because she claimed to have had a seizure.  So another night of no sleep for me.

I decided it was best not to engage with Dr. Asshat when he arrived the next day.  He checked things over and said “Well what are we going do today?”  I said “YOU are going to order me a shower and then I am going home.”  He said “I am not sure you can go home.”  I said “Why can I sprout a breast if I stay?”  He just looked at me.  I said “I haven’t slept in two days.  You can’t make me stay another night with the drug addict next to me.”  He peeked around the curtain at the crazy woman who at that point was rocking back and forth mumbling and just said “Ok.”

I was so relieved to get home, but the anger and devastation of waking up without the breast I expected was unbearable.  Martha was a rock taking care of me that first week.  I was a horrible angry, devastated, drugged up bitch.  She and Laurie have seen the result of the surgery and I think they agree that it is horrifying.  I prayed that when I went to my follow up appointment Dr. Asshat would have good answers for me.

Fortunately Laurie went with me to the appointment.  I was calm when I said to Asshat “So obviously this is going to take more than a perfecting surgery to complete.”  He said “Yes.”  I continued “but eventually this is going to look like a breast, right?”  He says “I hope so.”  (I HOPE SO??????  He has an effing degree from Georgetown – and he says “I HOPE SO?)  Instead of saying F- you, I take a deep breath and ask “Well what exactly is the plan?”  He says “I can probably use some tissue to help with shape but not with size and then we will reduce the other side to get them to look more alike.”  (So he wants to ruin the good breast to make it look like Franken- Tit?)  Then my favorite part of all – he says “If you lose weight they will look bigger.”  (Really??  HE does a SHIT job on my surgery and then has the fucking nerve to throw it in my face that I should lose weight???)  Laurie and I were both so angry we couldn’t speak (can you imagine me speechless?!?!)  But I’ll tell you what – before we walked out of the office – I already decided I would lose 150 pounds – that is 150 pounds of pointless fucking doctor.

Fortunately, my company bought this cool program when they got our insurance, where if you have a catastrophic illness, a nurse consultant is offered to you to help you navigate your way through things – my nurse Kelly Notch – is wonderful and has become a friend as well as a great consultant.  She called a few days after the surgery and when she asked how it went – I lost it crying.  She listened to the whole story and when I was done she was very quiet.  All she could say was – “THAT IS NOT RIGHT.”  So she got with her supervisor and the medical director and their recommendation was to focus on getting released from Dr. Asshat’s care (stitches out etc) and not to let him do anything else procedurally to me.  She has even done some research on other doctors – including asking her own, who said I could come to MN and he would fix me.  So it isn’t just me that thinks this is fucked up.

I had a second follow up with Dr. Asshat to get the last of the drains and stitches out of me and we hardly spoke.  Me because I want to call him every appalling thing I have ever heard and I assume He because he is afraid I am going to sue him.  That is a distinct possibility. 

Since then I have just had to heal from the crap surgery and think about next steps – finding a new doctor, possibly finding a lawyer, finding a way to stop crying every time I see myself in a mirror in the morning or staying awake all night because I am so filled with rage when I get undressed at the end of the day.   This man is not just a shitty doctor – he is a shitty person.  It is his fault that I have yet Another Fucking Growth Experience to go through before I can be done with the living hell of the last two years.

Remember all that positive energy I had as I fought my way through cancer? Yeah, well I am fresh out of it because it takes all my strength to keep from driving over this fucking asshole with my car.  (It has been slightly better since I went back to work and stopped my mind from thinking about it all day long!)  I am trying to get the good attitude back, I promise I am, but some days I am more successful than others.

As my wonderful, supportive friends (without whom I would not have gotten this far and whom I love, very, very much), here are a few things you need to know:

1)       I KNOW that a person can live without a breast and many clearly much stronger women than I am decide they don’t need reconstruction.  Hooray for them – they are awesome and better than me.  But I don’t give a shit!  I want two D cup breasts and I will not feel like a normal woman until I get them.

2)      I AM grateful that I didn’t die from cancer, and that I am not going to and I REALLY appreciate that you are grateful for that too.  Really.  But again, I don’t give a shit!  I want the Diva D’s on my chest and there is nothing wrong with me feeling that way.

3)      There are two general types of things that you can say to me that help through this – it doesn’t have to be in so many words but they are these two and only these two categories:

a.       There, there, Poor Baby, cry all you want, and we will get you through this too,  …. love you even if you are a mutant, etc.  or

b.      Fuck that Bastard Dr. Asshat, I hate him and I hope he dies and if you are the one who runs over him I will help you bury the body…..  

4)      Not kidding about  #3 – honestly there is nothing that anyone can do to make me magically feel better or  get me to “snap out of it” and no I don’t need fucking therapy – I need a boob job that leaves me with a nice set of ta-tas that don’t make me want to puke when I see them.  I am told by my regular doctor, nurse Kelly, and the consultant from Susan G Komen that it is perfectly normal for a woman to feel this way – it just usually happens after a mastectomy NOT after reconstruction!

So what IS going to help?  Well, hopefully that is what comes next.  I am going to search high and low for a surgeon who can fix this mammary monstrosity.  My first appointment is on July 26 with the Chief of Plastic Surgery at Georgetown, Dr. Scott Spears, who as it turns out has done work on several other people I know. He specializes in fixing problem reconstructions.  I am praying every day that he will say that he can fix ME.  If not, then I will go to the next surgeon on my list, or the next surgeon, until I find someone who can. 

I refuse - REFUSE - to believe that my breast cancer story ends this way!