Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A Little More Breast Cancer Commentary

Plastic surgery commentary, really.

Final post-op appointment yesterday.  Having rescheduled it twice, I thought I might as well get it over with.  

Half an hour's wait for a ten minute appointment.  The doctor offered the usual suggestions for future "work," and then asked me what I thought of the results.

"Really ugly," I said.  Calmly.

He then launched into his usual explanation as to this being "not a real breast."  

Uh, duh.

That was about it.

Surgery is a bizarre endeavor.  As far as I can tell.  This doctor seems to be a very nice man with a great deal of expertise and a good sense of humor.  But limited in what he can or wants to know and address about anything beyond the technical and physical aspects of his work. 

The fact that I am now completely alienated from the portion of my body on which he has expended his time and skill is not of any interest to him. 

It's really not of that much interest to me, so I suppose I should expect no more of him.  But it makes me a little sad, you know, that that particular area of my body can now best be described as grotesque. 

Several women have pulled up their shirts to show me their results.  I don't think I'll be one of those.

Well, I'll see how I feel at the end of a hot and sweaty summer.  Maybe I'll do something about the situation next winter and maybe I won't.

I guess that first we'll see how the next mammogram goes.

3 comments:

  1. With all that you have to do, I don't know whether or not you have the energy, but I encourage you to collect the pieces of writing that you have made about this journey and put them into a binder for this doctor, as a gift. Since he doesn't have any way of knowing what it feels like to be his own patient, you can educate him. Or at the very least, give him your copy of my book - I'll give you another one. The doctors need to know what it's like for patients and families!

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  2. If you don't like having implants bolted on, you can always opt for breast liposuction, which I've read here, http://www.plasticsurgeryguide.com/blog/when-uncertain-about-breast-reconstruction-surgery-hope.html, where they take fats from different part of your body like the butt and make a mold similar to your breasts. Personally, I'd go for this rather than having some heavy plastic bags hanging on my chest.

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