If You're Going Through Hell....... Keep Going!

It has been a nightmare from which I have struggled to wake up.   Bad enough to spend couple months of healing from a major surgery, add being disfigured to the mix and that is at least the third level of hell. 

I was trying really hard to get my good attitude back – I mean I made it through chemo, losing my hair, the first surgery, and a bitch of a radiation burn – but this was just one thing too many.   I was on the very end of my very last rope. 

First I had to pull myself together so I could express my concerns without using the F word, which you know is one of my favorite words.  This was and continues to be a challenge.  I think this has been a hard time for my friends to help me through because a) there isn’t anything you can do about it and b) it seemed so strange that you may have thought I was exaggerating.  I understand that and I love everyone for wanting to help, even though the situation is just bizarre.

Finally, I managed to get and calm enough to turn to the medical community to find a path forward from the devastation.   I had a lot of doctor recommendations from friends and from the great nurse consultant from my insurance company.  I researched each person and made a priority list of doctors who seemed to specialize in fixing problem surgeries.

I was most excited for my appointment with the Chief of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Spear.  (Thanks to Kimmie who went along with me to this appointment).  I was forewarned that Dr. Spear has the bedside manner of an IRS agent, but found that is a serious insult to the IRS.  In addition, his nurse manager made me want to punch her in the head.  Zero compassion – not a good start. 

While Dr. Spear agreed that my surgery had been a disaster and needed to be fixed, he honed right in on my weight like somehow this was the reason the surgery went wrong and that I need bariatric surgery.  Okay what the hell - I weigh less than I did before I got sick and if this was the problem – why did Asshat even do a surgery?  Zero sense.  But I digress.  Dr. Spear agreed that a breast should be made from my excess stomach tissue – ummm YES that was the original plan so I am thinking we are making progress.    Then he said “Well no one in Washington will touch you.”

WHAT?!??!   I DON’T HAVE FUCKING LEPROSY!!!

But wait, it gets WORSE if you can imagine that.    He proceeded to tell me at he didn’t think that I needed a mastectomy at all because of where my tumor was and that I would have had enough tissue to take out a wedge of my breast and just do reductions rather than a full removal.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  Now it isn’t like I agree with him and I really do trust the rest of my medical team who recommended the mastectomy but on what fucking planet would you think it is a fine idea to tell a mutilated woman something like that?  Especially when you don’t have the complete medical report on the cancer?  An asshat, plain and simple.

The only somewhat helpful thing he told me was the name of a doctor in Philadelphia who does believe that overweight women should get new breasts made from their stomach and apparently has the audacity to provide this service – Dr. Serletti.  Apparently every fat chick that gets breast cancer in DC has to leave the city to get help.  Whatever.

I cried for days.

But I powered through.  I made an appointment to go to Philadelphia in case that really was the only solution, but since my horrendously fat gut was calling bullshit, I decided to try a couple other DC doctors.  When I called their offices I basically just asked if the doctor would do a stomach version of the surgery on someone like me.  When I was O for 3, I was getting more and more depressed by the day. 

One of the many nights when I couldn’t sleep, I kept thinking of the other doctors on my Kick Cancer Team and I just couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t have told me that this was the situation.  I got up and dug out the original list of plastic surgeons that the very wonderful Dr. Golesorkhi had given me.  I went back to the other name on the list that had a star by it – denoting a surgeon with whom she had done more work.  I remembered why I had not called his office – it is the name of the practice.  DaVinci Plastic Surgery.  At the time, it had just rubbed me the wrong way.  I got on line and started researching the doctor – Dr. Davison.  Pleased with what I found, I decided to call the next day.

I lucked into an open appointment just four days later.  (Thanks to Tracy for going with me!) Honestly, I headed there with absolutely no hope, but I thought it was so absurd that I would have to go to Philadelphia that I had to try. 

What an amazingly different experience!

Before Dr. Davison even looked at the problem – he wanted to hear from me what I see when I look in the mirror and what kind of outcome I hope for.   I told him that my left breast as it was reduced is the right size and looks pretty good and that the right side looks like something Frankenstein’s doctor created and that I cry every single day when I see it.  I told him that I am just looking for a path forward that might get them looking roughly the same. 

Dr. Davison said two super important things –

 “Well, you are not overstating the problem in the least!”  And more importantly – “I can fix it!”

He wanted to know why Asshat hadn’t just used my stomach tissue to begin with (good fucking question) and said that the entire surgery would need to be redone (so I AM right!)  I told him the bullshit that I had been given over the summer and he was appalled.  He said that he used to be in practice with Dr. Spear and that Dr. Spear doesn’t like to work on fuller figured people and that was part of why he is no longer in that practice.  He added that personally he believes that anyone who needs his help should get it (How refreshing!) and that it was ridiculous to think I had to go to Philadelphia to get help.  (yes it is)  He also said that while losing weight is a good idea (obviously!) that it was ridiculous of them to say I needed bariatric surgery when they could take away tissue to make a new breast.   Huge sigh of relief.

He outlined a plan to repair me – a series of three surgeries.  The first surgery will be to take away the mess and start over by using my stomach tissue to make a new breast and give me an excellent tummy tuck.  That will mean a week in the hospital and four to six weeks off work.  The second surgery will be to sculpt the breast into shape to and to make the other side a little perkier but keeping it the same size and make them match! The final surgery is to take care of details and scarring.  He said the whole process will take around six months but that he believes there is a very good success rate even at my current weight.  He said “I would really like to do this for you.” I said "YES!"   I was elated, and relieved to the point of tears.   

He was so incredibly kind!  As we were leaving, he took my hand again and said “I don’t know why you have had to go through this horrible thing, but I am sure we can fix it and if something doesn’t work, I won’t stop trying until we get it right.”  I could have hugged him to bits. 

Instead, I sent him a note a few days later in which I told him that I had come to him with zero hope.  I thanked him for all of the time he spent with us and for his compassion.  I told him that I am looking forward to my surgery because he has already worked wonders on my wounded spirit.  

Seriously, even though I haven't had the surgery yet, I feel like a new woman.  It is a horrible thing to be without hope. 

But I was right - my cancer story is NOT going to end with this nightmare!! 

(Surgery 1 is likely in January 2013 in Washington DC)