Visit with surgeons.

Thought I'd check in though my news is kind of frustrating. I met with the plastic surgeon and team who thought I might need radiation so thought best option for surgery would be to do the mastectomy and put in an expander and do reconstruction (either tissue transfer or implant) after I am done with radiation if I need it. I was bummed this process would be more drawn out but after talking to the radiation oncologist I had thought I would probably need radiation too.

We (BoSoxFox, my steadfast companion) then went to see my general surgeon - while Dr. E was a little surprised about the concurrence about doing radiation she was happy to defer to the experts. We then tried scheduling surgery which the fancy plastic surgeon couldn't do until July 16, even though it would only be 45 minutes of his time since we were only doing the expander surgery and 2 hours earlier they seemed to think they could get it scheduled fairly quickly. This is the point where I basically lost it. After much finagling by Dr. E's assistant I am going to have surgery June 29 with a different plastic surgeon who is interning with the the microsurgery guys putting in the expander. This new doctor is a certified plastic surgeon and my doctor thinks she will do a good job and that I could still have the reconstruction afterward.

I'm not sure why the idea of having surgery on June 29 seems much more doable than mid-July but it seems dealable given I want the cancer out of my body. My sugeon pointed out most of the tumor is gone, so that is good news even though the stuff that's left seems more hardy. So more surgery, then radiation then some decisions about reconstruction but the cancer will be out of my body. I'm trying to figure out if I am being totally irrational and foolish in not waiting the extra 2 1/2 weeks to have the surgery with the more experienced surgeon. If I balk after meeting with the new plastic surgeon on monday I can see about rethinking this whole process.
My surgeon also gave me the option of having the mastectomy and then having the expanders put in later but having another surgery also seems like too much - given the 2 I've already had.

The other thing I'm trying to work out today/tonight is what recovery will look like and what I need to do in terms of having people stay and for how long. My parents are supposed to be going back to Vegas from NY on that day and logistically I'm not sure it would work to have them come up straight from NY.

I'll figure this out this weekend and Monday. Will try and write more or expand this over the weekend.

Kim