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Category Archives: breast reconstruction

Holy Crap! I Felt That!

22 Nov

If you’ve been keeping up with the latest gossip here on Boobcast, you know that yesterday I went in to Dr. Elliott’s office for a second round of areolae and nipple tattooing. It went SO much faster than the first time. The PA who did the tattooing said that the reason it took less time is because I already had pigment deposited under the skin. So instead of a two hour session like the first time, I was only in for about 45 minutes from the time I walked in to the time I left.

I had Ken take a few photos so that you can get an idea of what was going on. The first photo is the “Before” and you can see that I only had a little bit of pigment left from the first round in August of 2010.

The second photo below is an image of the actual tattooing. I have explained the process before, but for anyone not familiar, this is different from the kind of tattooing that is done at a tattoo studio. At a tattoo studio, the gun actually injects the dye under the skin. With medical tattooing, the pigment is applied and then the gun she is holding is run over the area to be tattooed and the skin is abraded so that the dye sinks in under the skin.

This type of tattooing takes a great deal more aftercare than a tattoo from a studio requires. With your standard tattoo, you probably won’t lose any of the tattoo if there is scabbing. With a medical tattoo, it’s just the opposite. With a medical tattoo, you MUST keep it moist with Vasaline because if it dries out and scabs up, the flaking of the scab will take the pigment right off with the scab. So for the next few weeks, Vasaline, gauze and paper tape are my best friends.

With either type of tattoo, a major consideration is how the scar tissue will take the ink. Scar tissue absorbs ink differently because of its composition. Sometimes it takes really well but most of the time, it ends up like the “Before” photo. Thus, people usually have to do more than one round of tattooing.

Below you can see what the application process looks like. She has already applied the pigment and is abrading the skin. This is where things got interesting. Last time all I felt was pressure. THIS time, however, was different on my right breast. I had more sensation from the vibration of the gun. AND in a few spots, I actually had

NORMAL sensation. My regular readers may recall that I have a couple other tattoos. Yes they were uncomfortable to get but one of them has a great story and the other commemorates this very difficult part of my life.

There were some areas that felt like she was briefly touching a smouldering matchhead to those spots. It stabbed and burnt like a regular tattoo would. It got SO intense I actually had to ask for a break!

Please understand that I am, in no way, shape or form, complaining. I’m THRILLED!!! After so much time being numb, I actually had real, authentic sensation!! I actually said “Holy crap! I FELT that!” when she started on that side.  I’m SO excited that, after all this time, my nerves are regrowing enough that I could experience full, normal sensation. I was even happier when she told me that she recently did a touch up for a woman four years out from her reconstruction and that woman had FULL SENSATION! So there’s hope!! I cannot begin to express just how excited I am by this new level of sensation. Yes it was pain but after a year and a half of numbness, pain was a welcome friend.

 
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Posted by on November 22, 2011 in areolae tattoo, areolae tattooing, breast, breast reconstruction, breast reconstruction photos, medical tattooing, nerve damage, Nipple reconstruction, nipple tattoing, nipple tattoo, Nipples, Pain, tattoo, tattooing

 

I Set A Date

08 Nov

In my last post I talked about finally understanding exactly WHY I was so afraid of having the next round of tattooing done. It went back to when I had the debrideing done and the cadaver skin bandage and general just being in the chair in the first surgeon’s office. I was still having traumatic memories related to those moments.

Now that I understand it was related to that man and those experiences I can face tattooing, knowing that all i have to do is keep reminding myself that the tattooist is not him; that this is making things better and the Twins are just fine.

It’s kind of like being a rape survivor. You tell yourself that the person you are with is not the one who hurt you. You focus on the new doctor, breathing deeply, making small talk to distract yourself and and telling yourself over and over again that you are safe. I say this from personal experience, not only from a surgury-gone-wrong standpoint, but also from a rape standpoint.

Like the title says, I set a date for the second, and hopefully final round of tattooing. I’ll be in Atlanta on November 21 and my appointment is for 4 pm. As is par for the course, I’ll have Ken take a few photos so you get the idea of what it’s like.

If you would like to learn more about medical tattooing, please visit here. You can also use the search feature to the right to find all my entries dealing with this part of the process.

 
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Posted by on November 8, 2011 in breast, breast reconstruction, medical tattooing, Nipple reconstruction, Nipples, Reconstruction, Uncategorized

 

Four Years And Still In Mourning

12 Oct

Today I gave a pep talk to a woman I admire in hopes that some of my own life experience might help her. She is having problems with both men and women who feel that it is okay to say cruel and hateful things to her simply because they disagree with her. The tone of her initial post felt like she was about ready to throw in the towel on doing the work she enjoys because of these hateful people. So I posted the following to her:

I want to tell you a story and I hope this helps you get your feet under you a bit better. Several years ago, back before I was a skeptic and before I had a decent sense of self worth, I had a boob job. I hated the way they looked after breastfeeding two kids and I thought that, as I approached the age of 40, it would make me feel better about myself.

I ended up developing necrosis due to unconfirmed surgical complications and I lost both of my nipples and areolae. I don’t know if there’s a worse experience than watching your own intimate body parts rot away but if there is, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

There’s much more to the story which you can read on http://boobcast.com if you are interested.

About a year after my chest healed, (I was severely deformed and required two reconstruction surgeries which i have long since had, to rousing success) I was finally in a mental state to start writing about what happened to me. I was bound and determined to write about it because if I DIDN’T write about it publicly, then, in my mind, the hack that did this to me would win.

That wouldn’t do.

There were SO many times when I had to stop in the middle of writing a post and go have a good, long cry. But I did it. I did it because I REFUSED to let my situation dictate my life. I refused to let what others told me change what I truly thought was the right thing to do.

Boobcast has made a real difference in women’s lives. I get regular emails telling me as much. I talk to women regularly who are scared and in need of reassurance and advice. I’m so very grateful I can do that.

When I was a little girl my father told me to “Stand and fight if you believe you’re right”. I learned determination from my mother who, after a motorcycle accident that left her in ICU for six months, taught herself to walk again when doctors said she never would.

Believe me when I tell you that I know it’s hard. I know it’s disheartening and some days you just want to give up and let the world go to Hell in its own little monogrammed handbasket. And some day you may decide you’ve had enough and that’s okay.

But please don’t let THEM make that decision for you.

I really hope that helps her. She’s doing good work in the skeptical and critical-thinking community and I would hate to see her give up because of all the hate mail and awful things people say about her in the blogosphere.

Unfortunately, this good deed of mine seems to have had some emotional backlash. I realized that even though Boobcast is doing good work, I am still in mourning for my loss. It has been four years as of yesterday since that first surgery and it still hurts emotionally. Not to the degree it used to, but it’s still a visceral pain. I feel nauseous remembering what I went through. I have tears in my eyes remembering what it was like and I wonder if I will ever completely heal emotionally from this.

I have had people suggest that I just walk away from Boobcast for a while. I can’t do that. Women email me regularly asking questions and seeking advice. I know what it’s like to be that terrified so abandoning the thing I have created here is not an option.

The upside is that where there were once great, wracking sobs, there are now just tears and a dull ache. Four years seems like forever and a single heartbeat at the same time. I guess I’m healing. They keep telling me that healing takes time. It’s just taking so long. I know that it will never be truly over because I will always bear the scars of reconstruction as a reminder. I will also always be here for others going through this nightmare.

I can’t abandon my post as long as I’m needed.

It has also been suggested that I start talking to women’s groups about what I have experienced. With the settlement I have, I’m not sure I can do that, but I’m looking in to it. The recent cease and desist letter I got about my comments on the Complaints Board scares the Hell out of me. We’re having a lawyer look at that to make sure that it only pertains to the settlement and not the case itself. If that is the case and it only pertains to the settlement, I will probably start doing that.

In the mean time, life continues on. I still need to have one last round of tattooing done and hopefully that will be it for the medical stuff. I’m thinking that perhaps I’ll do it in November or December, depending on the tattooists schedule. I’ll post when I have something concrete.

 
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Posted by on October 12, 2011 in anniversary, Anxiety, boob job, breast, breast implants, breast lift, breast necrosis, breast reconstruction, complications, cosmetic surgery, Depression, emotional healing, emotional scars, Healing, necrosis, Necrotic tissue, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery Disaster, Recovery, situational depression, Surgical complications, Uncategorized

 

Breast Reconstruction – My One Year Anniversary

16 Apr

One year ago today I was freaking out and seriously considering saying ‘screw it all I want to go home’. And then the nurse gave me the I-Don’t-Care-Juice and, well, I didn’t care anymore. Fear of  the same complications I had previously set up a lovely fight or flight response. Mostly flight.

If you’re interested in reading about my pre- and post-reconstruction experience, you can start here. For those not familiar with latissimus flap breast reconstruction; the type of breast reconstruction I had, click here.

Below you will find photos of what my breasts look like one year after surgery and the scars on my back; the donor sites where the muscle, fat and skin were taken from to construct the Twins.

This first photo is of the scars on my back. The one wider scar spot on the bottom left is where I had a little trouble healing. The corseted feeling that I described from the beginning is no longer there. However, there is still one area on my righthand side where the skin still feels tight.

Below is a side view of the Twins. You can see here what I was talking about in yesterday’s post about the slight squarish shape they have right now. That squarishnss was much more pronounced early on. As the tissue has softened and settled, the squarish shape has curved a bit.

The third image below shows both breasts one year later. The scar lines have faded significantly over the last year but they have become, texturally, a bit more pronounced.

That’s where I am right now. I’m going to be scheduling my one year checkup with for the end of this month. I’m still trying to decide if I’m ready for nipple reconstruction or not. I’m pretty sure that’s the route I want to go. I’m just not positive. I don’t miss them most of the time. but the Twins aren’t quite complete without them. I’ll talk about this more in a separate article. In the mean time, enjoy the Twins.

 
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Posted by on April 16, 2010 in anniversary, breast reconstruction, breast reconstruction photos, Nipple reconstruction, Nipples, Uncategorized

 

My Breasts – One Year Later

15 Apr

One of my regular readers asked for what amounts to a critique of The Twins from both my perspective and my husband’s. So here we go: What I think of my boobs almost one year after reconstruction.

They’re BIG. I know we’ve been over this before, but DAMN. They’re still really big. Those of you who have seen the breast reconstruction photos know I’m not even half kidding. Those are ALL me. No implants. After all the problems I had related to implants, I insisted that they not be used.

They look natural. They bounce, they sway, they’re not plastered to my chest like a pair of angry headlights. They even do that fallout thing. In other words, when I’m laying on my back naked, they migrate towards my armpits like normal boobies do.

In a push up bra I have cleavage for DAYS. AND they pass the Pencil Test with a 4.0 GPA.

I love the Twins and I’m beyond grateful to have them so please understand that the critique I am about to give is in NO WAY meant to imply that I’m not happy with what I have. These are observations on my own reconstruction that other women may or may not experience.

There are really only a couple very minor things. First, on the cleavage side of my right breast there is this one little spot where the flap was sewn in that looks just a little bit uneven. The only angle that can be seen from is the top and in this photo you have to look very hard to see it. The right breast is the top photo.

You can see a tiny bit of lumpiness where the green intersects with the breast. It is also a little flat on the front from that angle making the breast look slightly squarish.

The left breast, pictured below, is a better example of the slightly squarish look shown here. This HAS improved over the past year.

There is also a very minor indent where the scar is but that’s just what happens with any scar.

As far as the feel goes, they are pliant, yet firm. Since *I* know how they were constructed I know that firmness comes from the transplanted latissimus flap muscle. On the bottom outside edge of both breasts, if you probe, you can feel the outer edge of the muscle flap.

When you do a full on grope, it’s the muscle that makes up the firmness and the fat that makes them soft and pliant.

Many of you have asked for the perspective of my husband, Ken. I will be asking him to write guest articles on the more emotional aspects of necrosis and recovery from that in later installments. In the mean time, here are a few of his comments on the Twins one year out from surgery.

Ken: “Due to the procedure, there are some areas that are a little squarish. Considering what Dr. Elliott started with, they’re AMAZING! They also came out much bigger than both of us expected but that’s NOT a bad thing.”.

When asked about what my breasts feel like, he comments, “They feel amazing and they fit my hands well. They’re big, they’re full and they have a nice heft to them.”. He thinks that, appearance-wise, the Twins are a good size for my frame.

In general he reports that he can’t feel the flap. If he feels in detail, he can feel the scar tissue (the scar lines where the flaps were inserted) but nothing unusual.

Tomorrow I will post detailed photos of what the Twins AND my back look like exactly one year after reconstruction so stay tuned.

 
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Posted by on April 15, 2010 in anniversary, boob job, breast reconstruction, breast reconstruction photos, breast size, breast volume, Latissimus flap, latissimus flap reconstruction, Reconstruction, reconstruction surgery, Recovery, recuperation, scar tissue, Scars, Surgery, Uncategorized

 

My Emotional Healing – One Year Later

14 Apr

In just a few days I will celebrate my one year breast reconstruction anniversary. It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed already. Yet here I sit with the Twins neatly filling out my  New Orleans t-shirt.

My regular readers know that the time before my reconstruction was  really bad. I talked honestly about feeling like a deformed, sub-human thing. I considered myself to be mangled and a not human being.

I also talked about wanting to kill myself. More than that: I had a plan for killing myself. I suffered from severe suicidal depression because of the mangled remnants of my chest. Once during the period that I had been hooked up to the VAC machine I called suicide hotline. She saved my life and I am grateful. She’s one of the reasons that I write this blog.

Unfortunately, the time period before the surgery was MUCH worse. I knew I was much more serious about it than I had been previously because I wasn’t talking about it at all. My performance was SO convincing that no one in the family had the slightest idea that I had a plan in place to end my life if financing for the reconstruction had not come through.

I’ve come a LONG way since then. I’m much more content. I have real periods of happiness now. I understand that the severe depression was solely situational. In a case like that, no medication would have worked.

I LOVE the Twins. They have some minor flaws and quirks that I will talk about in another post. But I am SO grateful to have them that the flaws are a relatively minor issue and are, for all intents and purposes, inconsequential.

As happy as I am to have them, I still have some unresolved anger issues. I’m not normally a violent person. Nor do I generally wish for harm to come to people. There IS, however, one exception. The surgeon. I still feel he was negligent. I think that something happened during the initial augmentation and lift that led to the subsequent necrosis and I wish him to suffer just as much as I did.

I will not cause him harm. I’m not that kind of person. But I would definitely throw a party if someone were to pulverize and powder the bones of his hands with a sledgehammer. That’s all. I don’t want him dead. Death is too easy. I just don’t want him to do to someone else what he did to me.

So, yes, I’m angry. I feel cheated. But I was so emotionally fucked up that I settled just to get the hell away from him. How’s THIS for screwed up? In the state of Florida no other plastic surgeon will even SEE you while you’re under the care of another plastic surgeon.

I have more emotional healing to do even after a year. I have these moderate anger issues to deal with and I still have sorrow surrounding the loss of my original breasts. There are times when I write a particularly difficult article here and it leaves me in tears.

Please understand that I do not blame this blog for my tears. Boobcast has been a haven of sanity. Writing these articles, being this open and honest, has kept me sane. I still just have brief periods where I grieve the loss of my breasts. I grieve for what I put my husband and family through. I grieve for two years of my life lost.

Yeah. I still have some healing to do.

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2010 in anniversary, be yourself, boob job, breast implants, breast lift, breast reconstruction, cosmetic surgery, emotional healing, emotional scars, fear, Flashbacks, Recovery, Uncategorized

 

Aches and Pains

13 Apr

A year out from breast reconstruction I am still having the odd occasional ache or pain. Most of the time it’s in my chest but sometimes my remaining latissimus muscles will cramp up for no apparent reason.

For instance, last Thursday evening we were at DisneyWorld. We have annual passes so we’re somewhere on property pretty frequently. After walking around the property of a house we’re very interested in buying we headed over to the park. By the time we got there my chest was aching.

On the 1 to 10 pain scale it was only about a 3 but something like that hadn’t happened in quite a while. It had been at least two months. My upper chest was tender to the touch and the muscles around my cleavage ached to the point that I wished I had some Tylenol. It was bizarre.

The pains I spoke of earlier are nerve pains. It feels like someone is poking me with a long, thin pin. Unfortunately this has been an ongoing situation.  They tend to crop up suddenly in either my chest or my back. At the beginning it was all my chest. More recently it has been more in my back.

Before my father-in-law passed at the beginning of last month I had been training using the Couch to 2K program. A few weeks into the program I got a pinched nerve in, of all places, my right breast. Which is weird considering the skin on most of the breast is numb but the tissue underneath has sensation.

Right now as I type this, I have minor nerve pains in my left breast and the right side of my back aches. I walk such a fine line with activity. If I do too much, I ache, if I don’t do enough, I ache.

Of course the discomfort is minor in comparison to the first time I got out of bed right after surgery. That hurt worse than labor even WITH the morphine. I just would have thought that by now I’d be past nerve pain and back aches.

Only time will tell how much more I’ll recover.

 
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Posted by on April 13, 2010 in breast, breast reconstruction, nerve damage, Recovery, recuperation, Uncategorized

 

Shutting Down

17 Mar

First, I’m sorry about the length of time between posts. We lost my husband’s father and things have been really chaotic dealing with family issues, memorial planning, etc. Things will be returning to normal on Monday.

Second, I want to talk more about my nipple dilemma. There will be extra money soon and I’ll have the capability of scheduling the nipple reconstruction. I’m scared. I’m not mind-numbingly terrified the way I was when I scheduled my breast reconstruction. But I’m still frightened of something going wrong.

The main *something* is, of course, my old nemesis, necrosis. I love my Twins. They have their little flaws but what breasts don’t? So why fix what isn’t broken? Because somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m still not complete.

Yet, whenever I think about actually doing it, I start to shut down. I feel like curling in on myself. I don’t know if I’m really ready. I want to just be done with it but I’m scared.

Has anyone out there had nipple reconstruction? Would you share your story, good or bad, with me please?

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2010 in breast, breast necrosis, breast reconstruction, complications, cosmetic surgery, necrosis, Nipple reconstruction, Nipples, plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery Disaster, Reconstruction, reconstruction surgery, Surgery, Uncategorized

 

Sore Flap

23 Feb

I have noticed over the last week or so since I started the C25K.com program that I have some problems. I have a silver dollar sized area on the outer edge of my right breast that feels like someone is boring into my breast. The spot isn’t where the wire ends on bras. It’s about an inch forward of that, towards where my nipple would be if I had one. If I probe, I can feel the edge of the muscle flap.

Now I’m SURE I definitely overdid it this past weekend. Saturday Ken and I took the “Keys To The Kingdom” tour at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. It’s a FIVE HOUR walking tour. Of course there were short breaks and 30 minutes for lunch. We’re talking about a 3.5 mile hike around the park. For me, that’s like running a marathon.

We got up at 6 am so that we could be there by 8 to check in because the tour started at 8:30. Then our lovely guide Evelyn, proceeded to take us all around the park. It was a fantastic tour and I recommend it highly. This tour was on top of the C25K.com run I did on Friday.

After a nap, we came back since the park was open til midnight and stayed until nearly closing. I was pretty worn out but I thought maybe with a good night’s sleep and some aspirin, I’d feel better. We slept until we woke up and I was sore and tender but I figured if I walked, I’d stretch out the soreness. After a nice breakfast of fruit and yogurt, we went BACK over to Magic Kingdom. As we were walking out the previous night, I found a child’s hoodie sitting on top of a covered trash can so when I dropped it off at City Hall, the woman there asked if i would like a fast pass. It was good for one attraction. Since we hadn’t gotten to go on Space Mountain since it re-opened after refurbishment in December of last year, aches and pains or not, We were GOING on Space Mountain. By the time we made our way to the back of the park, I was starting to feel like a zombie. But by damn I wasn’t going to give in.

After Space Mountain we went all the way BACK out to the car and drove over to Animal Kingdom. I wanted to milk this weekend for all it was worth since we so rarely stay over night. So we took it reeeally slooooowlyy. By the time the park closed at 6pm, I was spiking about a 4 on the pain scale. That’s the highest it’s been for a long time. I was firmly convinced that I had died some time the previous night and no one had bothered to tell me.

By the time we got home I was thinking that I might have done something to my right breast flap, i was in that much pain. So I grabbed the ice pack and tossed down some Tylenol. This morning, I was in even worse shape. I went to change my bed time top and it felt like the flap was ripping. So I called Patti at Dr. Elliott’s office.

She was kind enough to reassure me that I hadn’t done any damage to what they had done. She suggested I take ibuprofen the rest of the day and resume normal activity tomorrow. She said that getting back to my old self (or in my case, better than my old self – my words, not hers) was going to be painful.

So here I sit, waiting for Ken to get back with ibuprofen. I’m SO not looking forward to running tomorrow but I’m NOT going to skip it. I’m just shifting it to T-TH-S this week instead of the usual M-W-F.

 
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Posted by on February 23, 2010 in breast, breast reconstruction, Latissimus flap, latissimus flap reconstruction, Pain, Pain Management, plastic surgery, Reconstruction, reconstruction surgery, Recovery, Uncategorized

 

In Honor Of Mardi Gras: My Boobies!!

17 Feb

Ladies and gentleman, in honor of the 2010 Mardi Gras, and because I can’t be there in person to do this, I present to you…. <drum roll please>

MY BOOBIES!!

Okay, okay, so they’re not MY boobies. And that’s actually spelled Bubis according to a few sites I’ve looked at. These two on the left are Blue Footed Bubis. There is also a species of Red Footed Bubi on the Galapagos Isles as well. See the photo below.

Yeah, I know. Feathered Bubis just aren’t the same. And so, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you, my new breasts about a month after latissimus flap breast reconstruction. (see more about that here: living_latflap.htm#how The reason there is tape on them is to keep the scars from becoming keloid scars. Those are thick and ropey. The tape helps them heal flat.

 
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Posted by on February 17, 2010 in anniversary, breast reconstruction, breast reconstruction photos, emotional healing, French Quarter, keloid, keloid scars, Latissimus flap, Latissimus Flap Breast Reconstruction photos, latissimus flap reconstruction, Reconstruction, reconstruction surgery, Recovery, recuperation, scar tissue, Scars, Uncategorized

 
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