Fat Girls Need Not Apply. Breast Reconstruction 101.
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 …
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