The day of my surgery was a total blur to me, when I woke up the first thing I did was check to make sure the doctors gave me my new “girls”. I knew that was the plan but I worried that when the surgery got going they would have found more cancer and therefor they would not be able to do the reconstruction. I was very relieved when I felt these two bandaged bumps. Now I could not sit up because they did cut my abdomen from hip to hip but from where I was looking I looked more like Dolly Parton than me. I know most of it was bandages but still I was shocked.
When I woke my husband was right there asleep in the chair next to my bed, I said his name to wake him up. When he was awake he began to tell me how long the surgery was, it turned out to be 18 hours instead of the 14 that I was expecting. When he mentioned how long it was I got concerned again that they found something else but he assured me they just had to deal with some scar tissue.
My plastic surgeon likes to make his rounds late at night, I really don’t know why but he would always show up after 10. I was to lay flat for the first day and it was not too bad, I think the morphine helped quite a bit. When the surgeon did make his rounds he wanted me to look at the incisions when he changed the bandages. I will admit I am a giant wus and could not do it. He explained that I had 5 JP drains one on the side of each of the “girls”, one on each side of the hip to hip incision and one in the middle of the incision. The drains are there to help remove fluid from the surgery site and they are gross. There is no other way to describe them, they are just gross. I think he liked using me as an instruction tool because he would always call a different nurse in and explain the procedure he did. I felt very ridiculous but I guess he was proud of his work.
The doctor told me I had to get up the next day and try to walk. I was not looking forward to that but I guess I had to eventually.
Read more about my surgery: