A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

A few weeks ago I had an appointment with a well-respected plastic surgeon in Toronto — I’ll call her Dr. T — same personality as Mr. T., but with less gold.

I had been thinking about the various options for a few months now: do I want implants? I was about 80% sure I would get implants because they are less invasive and I presumed I could be back to work within a few days.

Unfortunately since I had gangrene and likely prone to infections, Dr. T. tells me I’m absolutely 100% not a candidate for implants.

That leaves a TRAM Flap — okay, not so bad to get a tummy tuck and new boobs at 50, I thought.

Let me backtrack a moment …

I get to this very posh office with Google map in hand and the 2 assistants seem quite bored. One of them, who appears to have had a lot of work done on her face, gives me the usual questionnaire to fill out. I always fill these out and usually ask for an extra piece of paper so I can be as verbose as possible.

The other receptionist, approximately my age, perhaps in her mid-50s, tells me that I need to see pictures — I tell her I don’t need to see pictures of tits, because I know what they look like, and can have a pretty good idea of what post-surgery might look like. She tells me I have no choice.

Once in this large room with a computer and this woman hovering over my shoulder, she clicks away at all the post-op women. Other than some women are prone to keloids, there’s nothing unusual — she says that they never know who will get keloids and that they are easily fixed with laser surgery.

At the end of this tit-viewing session, she points to this stack of paper and tells me it’s a waiver I need to sign and she leaves me alone in this room with this legal document.

After reading it, I decide not to sign it — it basically tells me that I have no “moral and legal rights to the photographs” that they’ll be taking of me.

Since she’s left the room, I can’t ask any questions, so I don’t sign it.

Back to Dr. T.

She has the questionnaire I signed and is asking me the same questions that’s on the questionnaire.

When we get to the “infection” portion of the questionnaire, she stops me, and says she’s confused … “what?” she protests. So I explained what happened with the necrotic tissue during surgery, and I must have screwed up her script. Yes, it seems like she’s reading a script — she’s not personable at all.

I try to interrupt with questions — after all, we are talking about me.

She tells me to stop talking and wait until she’s finished reading her script.

Of course by the end of her script, I can’t remember a darn thing.

A few other weird things happen in the office, and I won’t bore you with the details.

Dr. T. does tell me even more bad news — I have permanent nerve damage in my arm and chest — she was quite peeved at my surgeon for not telling me that it’s permanent — oh I can’t wait to see Dr. Ewan in September and let him know he might want to rethink his referral database.

To say the least, the paperwork she gave me explaining the breast reconstruction surgery is terrifying — and if someone has a lot of belly fat, she won’t do the surgery — hey another good reason to stay healthy so I guess that means no more french fries for me!

She says she’s booking for September — hell if she’s going to lay a scalpel on me just yet — I’ve barely had a minute to think about cancer and now I have to think about more surgery? Maybe next year I think.

OHIP pays for all these reconstruction surgeries — it’s not a single operation, so keep that in mind — it’s done in stages.

Perhaps that’s why Dr. T. and her assistants weren’t that nice with me — I’m viewed as a government freebie, rather than a cash cow — if that’s not their intention, they should try being a patient in their own office.

So if you are still smoking and are a big fat girl, I’m surprised you’re still alive …

Because cancer is the easy part: now I understand why women opt not to have the reconstruction as it could mean many months of convalescing — and the last time I checked my bank account, I can’t afford to lie in bed and eat bon bons … oh yeah, that will kill me …

If Barbie were Yiddish, Joan Rivers could be her bubby (pronounced similar to boobie) …

Joan Rivers has had a lot of plastic surgery — I think I heard her say on some show that she’s spent about $150,000.00 on plastic surgery. To me, she still looks old, except now she could be Barbie’s really old relative with smooth skin. Poor Melissa, Joan’s daughter, could also be Barbie or Midge’s great old auntie now, too — I certainly see the similarity between Midge and Melissa’s foreheads, don’t you?

This post is about surgery, including plastic surgery, except it’s about the decision for reconstruction surgery after a radical mastectomy.

The good news is that the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) pays for all reconstruction surgery for breast cancer survivors because it’s considered “body image”.

I haven’t been referred to a plastic surgeon yet and Dr. Ewan says it will probably be a year before I’ll be able to get to see one — and that most plastic surgeons typically don’t like to consider surgery after breast cancer for at least a year after a mastectomy [paraphrasing] — so this information may change after I’ve seen a plastic surgeon.

After a mastectomy, there are several options (all paid for by OHIP):

1. Do nothing. This is more common than I ever thought and more common amongst mature women over 60. I read an article about a photographer who had taken photos of women with mastectomies which looks pretty darn cool.
2. Prosthetics (plastic boobs that pop into your bra). One of the nurses at the hospital came in to show us her prosthetic (there were 2 of us in the room that had a radical mastectomy). She popped it out and I was relieved to see that it has a nipple — continuing to look like a girl is important to me. She said that she had her mastectomy over 20 years ago and only now is she considering reconstructive surgery.
3. Implants. These, to me, seem to be the least invasive. My question would be, does the other breast also get a bit of a lift — since I still have one real breast, I think it would look quite odd to have one breast that doesn’t project like the other one. I’m hoping the answer is yes, I would get a smaller implant into the real breast so that both breasts match.
4. TRAM flap. For me, this sounds like I would be out of commission for a long time again. Although getting a tummy tuck as well as a new realistic looking boob sounds fabulous, I’ll guess that recovery time is at least another 6-8 weeks. After the surgeon takes the fat from the abdomen, they make a new breast from it. After which I can decide to have a tattoo for the areola — and the nipple is made out of a piece of the labia. I doubt all of this is done at the same time, which probably adds to the recovery time. Since I’m self-employed, this is not an ideal option for me … even if I would love to have a tummy tuck at 50!

Perhaps it’s a good thing I have to wait at least a year before making any decisions since I’m still numb from the elbow up to the shoulder, across to the collar bone and down past the incision area — it’s bizarre to be itchy and numb simultaneously.

Hopefully none of these options would make me look like old plastic; the way the majority of celebrities are moving towards … how on earth do they expect to have a career in acting if they can’t show any expression … hmmm. That’s another question for another blogger that cares about celebrities.

Look for the Joan Rivers doll & Melissa Rivers doll coming to a store near you …