August 5, 2005 – The PS and PT’s.

Today we met with one of the most highly recommended Plastic Surgeons that I have heard of. Since I had to wait nearly two months to get into see him, I will say it was worth the wait. The appointment had its good news and bad news. For example, when I initially made the appointment I was told Dr. Zamboni was booked solid on surgeries until next year. After meeting him he told me he would like to get me in this fall, however, it’s not for the procedure I had wanted. I had my heart set on a TRAM Flap procedure where they use your own body tissue instead of an implant. I didn’t want an implant because I don’t want to have to go through 2 separate surgeries or more and all the saline injections for the tissue expander, or to have 1 hard boob, and 1 soft boob – but as I was told, in order to have a TRAM Flap done, I would need to lose 50 lbs. first, because the tissue isn’t just fat, it’s muscle as well, and if it’s not right it won’t take and the tissue will die. So, unfortunately I have to go with a tissue expander first, which he said he would put more fluid than normal in, then I have to fly down every 2-3 week for saline injections which he will double the amount on. Normally it takes about 3 months to stretch the skin out to size, and can be quite painful if too much is injected too fast, but since I am on morphine already because of my bone pain, he said he would double up on the injections and to just continue seeing the pain management doctor, so it should take about half the time, about 1 ½ months. Once the skin is stretched out completely, he will take out the tissue expander and replace it with an implant, while at the same time doing a breast lift procedure on the other to make them appear symmetrical. Then somewhere down the road, I will have a nipple fabricated out of a piece of skin and sewn on and also an areola tattooed on. It’s a good thing I won’t have much feeling in that breast, because that does not sound like fun! Although it’s not the procedure I want, at least the majority of it will be done this year. (While we waited for the doctor we played with our Palm cameras. It’s not the best quality of pictures, but it’s a handy little device. Oh, and those red spots on my face, not acne, that’s that lovely rash I get when I’m out in the sun. This is courtesy of buckling my daughter in her seat yesterday.)
Afterwards, we met up with our friend Tony, who we both used to work with in the Vegas office, at PT’s when he got off work. They had a couple beers, and we chatted over dinner. While there we ran into another friend we used to work with, Rob. It was nice getting to see them both, and spend some time with them before leaving town.