"Getting It Off My Chest" ~ Indecisiveness

I have been doing my best to decide on my reconstruction throughout the last month. My emotions are all over the place, I become so frustrated with my indecisiveness and then I get so frustrated I cry. I wish the choice was easier or someone would tell me which one to do. Seeing Jo helped a lot as she had the Lat dorsi reconstruction and looks great. She even let me look at them and feel them. The scars on her back have faded and are hardly noticeable and with that in mind I think ive decided. If I was able to have implants with the DIEP I would have gone with that but I think lat dorsi is good for me. I have 84 days until my holiday, so 85 days to bust my ass working out and losing as much weight as I can. When I get back from my holiday ill be calling my plastic surgeon to try and book a earlier appointment and at that appointment Im going to tell him I would like a lat dorsi reconstruction with implants and i want a date to be made, fingers crossed it all plays out that way and I don’t shy away and say nothing. When I speak to my surgeon I seem to become shy and for some reason I can’t be upfront and out spoken. I seem to just nod and say yes and I know that it makes me look insecure and unsure but that’s not how I feel at all. Im not sure why it happens and why I come across that way. I wish I could just be more confident so im not taken as insecure or unsure.

So my next appointment to see the plastic surgeon again has been made! I called the plastic centre and tried to book an earlier appointment and found out that my appointment has already been made for the 5th November. It seems like such a long time from now, Im a little bit annoyed that its so far away, i know it will fly by but November seems forever. away At least if I could have made it for when i wanted to in September it would feel closer and my holiday before in August would keep my mind occupied. Waiting has been inevitable in this whole journey, even though it frustrates me every single time im told I have to wait, im starting to get used to it.

In Need of a quick break

Off to the airport we go. Mum and I are so excited for our holiday. A few months ago I won a holiday to Phuket on the radio. I wanted to win it for Mum because she was told that she is now in remission plus she tries to go on holiday to Phuket every year but this year she was unable to. The morning I won the holiday, I called her and woke her up. She couldn’t believe what I was saying, 5 nights in Phuket for free. Your cancer free present I said, she can hardly speak and she is crying. She deserves it. Our flight was very early in the morning 1am, so we had to be up at the airport at around 10pm. Mum came and picked me up and took me to her place. Her neighbour across the road is a taxi driver and has said he would take us to the airport. We get to the airport and it just doesn’t seem real yet, but we are tired so we don’t have much thought about anything. I was just looking forward to getting on the plane and having a sleep. Our plane boards and we are ready. It starts to get exciting even though we are tired. The plane takes off…..here we come Phuket!

So the whole flight was so uncomfortable. I had a man sitting next to me snoring really loud, plus I couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep. Every time I would doze off even a little bit I would wake up and right now im missing my bed, my hubby and my kids. We get to Singapore at 7am, we are like zombies walking through the airport. We sit and wait for our next plane to Phuket. I jump onto the computer to skype Darrell & the kids. They are all up and excited to see me and Nanna on the screen. Bailey is getting ready for school and the twins are playing. Darrell reassures me everyone is good and they all say love you and bye. Mum and I board the next plane. It’s a tiny plane and even more uncomfortable. Its only a 40 min flight and very bright so there goes my chance of sleeping. We land in Phuket, its 9am. We find our taxi driver and drive the 30+ mins to the hotel. Mum and I agree that as soon as we get into the hotel we will have a nap, try sleep through the morning, wake up just after lunch and we will feel heaps better. Its so hot, around 34c. Back at home its August so its cold and raining, so it’s a big change. We finally get to the hotel. They all recongnise mum, say how they thought she wasn’t coming this year because she comes June/July. Its cute how they all remember her. They all seem so happy to see her. We check in at the front desk, ready to just get to bed. Then we are told our room isn’t ready yet and wont be until 1pm. I scream in my head, my body is ready to collapse and the news just punched me in the face. What can we do for 3 hours! All we want and need is sleep. We have been awake for more the 24hrs now and just want to pack it in. We decide to get something to eat and drink and then lay by the pool and just wait. Its too hot to go walking or do anything else, plus I don’t think my body will move that far. The first 2 days were horrible, we were still semi zombies, couldn’t really eat and couldn’t really be bothered. We went and saw the fights and went to the zoo, went to tiger kingdom and did some shopping. At night we would walk down the main street and watch the night life then go back to the hotel and talk & drink on the balcony. We didn’t do too much but it was so great to just be there with mum. A few times I thought to myself, if she didn’t go for her mammogram the few months early when she had a feeling she should then she may not be sitting here with me right now in Phuket. We spoke about my high risk and the surgery. Mum has always been on board but always makes sure its something I really want to do, typical mum trying to be protective. I think when I explain it all to her in my way and words she understands a lot better. She keeps forgetting that I have more risk then she did but when she remembers its as natural to her as it is to me to do what im doing.

5 days went quite fast and we were home safe. I was excited to see Hubby and the kids and couldn’t wait to get back to normal life after such a great relaxing holiday.

My mind keeps going back and fourth with which reconstruction I want. Im driving myself and everyone else I speak to about it, crazy! Sometimes I feel like im being annoying and people are getting sick of my speaking about my whole journey. I don’t like feeling like a burden on anyone but I like hearing what other people think and what they would do. Most of the time the conversation is me speaking and the other person nodding and agreeing and then when I say what would you do they have no idea anyway. I hope im not being annoying, I would really hate to think that people are getting sick of me. Even online with the groups that have women in the same situation or similar situations seem to be getting sick of me or not interested anymore. I either get no answers on my questions or they are short with answers. I just want someone to tell me what reconstruction to get! Every time I look at my post baby belly flab i want the DIEP but also wanting the Lat Dorsi combine with implants so I can be the size that I want. I suppose having until November to do more research (which might not be possible after the amount research ive done already) is a good thing but I wish it was sooner. At least have that much time to keep losing weight and to keep deciding. At my next appointment Im going to ask for a surgery date and hope I get one.

 I got to see my plastic surgeon on the 5th Nov. It was a long wait to see him which was annoying as always. We sat for about 2 hours to see him. When we got in he was trying to go over everything, kind of to try to remember my case, obviously because he was flat out. I told him I think Lat dorsi with implants was the best option for me but he still went over all of my choices. He explained all of my options again. He said implants only would be fine because there is something they can use to make the coverage fuller and it also protects the implants, He said if I went DIEP it would be possible to add implants to get my desired size, but in May he told me implants only would maybe look out of proportion on my body shape, they wouldn’t be as protected as tissue recon and they may look a lot more fake. In May I asked if implants could be combined with diep to get my desired size and he said no it wasn’t something that they do very often if at all.

 He kept saying he didnt want to push me to decide a certain type but he just kind of made me more undecided and confused by telling me things differently to the way he told me in May. In a way I wish I recorded our conversation to show him why I seemed so confused this time around. Diep was my original choice, I wanted to get rid of my baby belly from the twins that I would never be able to budge and also have implants to make myself the size I would like but after he told me that implants couldn’t happen and I would only be a very small C cup with diep I changed my mind and stuck to LD with implants.

The reason I wouldn’t go Implants only, is because I want to still look natural so the flap in diep or LD would give me that and the implants combine would give me my size. Implants also do not grow with your body, so if you gain or lose weight they wont change and sometimes they can move up too high or down too low and need to be changed. So I stood my ground and told him I wanted Lat dorsi with implants and we signed the surgery consent form, after a few times he said he didn’t want to sign me because I seemed unsure again. I thought to myself, well duh you have confused me all over again and told me completely different things to what you told me in May! Of course im confused. But I needed to take the next step and told him I needed to sign it, ive been waiting too long already. So I left the appointment happy that I was a step forward but annoyed that deep down I was confused again and he knew it. He did say if I change my mind I can call him.

I had a dream the other night I had my surgery but i had diep with implants and my mum was freaking out telling me he did the wrong one. he didnt do the back one he did the tummy one. So Im confused again. Im weird with those sorts of things. I think there is a sign behind that dream and now I think maybe I should go for the one i originally wanted and make sure 100% implants will be combined to make my ideal size.

Its certainly Driving me nuts!!!

Ok so I changed my mind, WHAT A SURPRISE! Had an appointment to see my plastic surgeon on the 20th Dec. We changed my surgery recon to DIEP.  I was telling him how worried I am about not looking proportioned and not being the size I want to be. He explained that he will do the diep reconstruction and let me heal for a few weeks and then if im not happy with my size he can use fat injections (lipo) from my thighs unless I want to go alot bigger then implants will be combined. I would just prefer to have implants put in at the same time because I know in my gut that my diep wont give me my desired size and having to have more things done just puts more recovery time ontop. But he seems to think I will be happy with my size so we will see.

The surgery consent form was signed, my ct scan being booked and the date booking lady even came in and spoke to my surgeon about dates this time so i was very happy and it certainly feels like things are starting to happen. They said March surgery date and I will be put on standby for any earlier appointments if there are no priority patients.

Im very happy with my choice of DIEP and am a little excited to get rid of my baby flap.