April 10, 2019 - Happy Spring! In three weeks, I'll be having my fifth, and hopefully last, surgery related to my BRCA1 gene mutation, which I found out about on April 19, 2018, my 61st birthday. As I reflect on the past year, and think about celebrating my 62nd birthday in a couple weeks, I have no regrets about any decisions I've made on this journey and the prophylactic surgeries I've opted to have. I remain grateful to be alive and well and cancer-free! And lucky to have been given a heads up (thanks to 23andMe DNA testing) about my greatly elevated risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer in time to take action to prevent those cancers.
Here are the surgeries I've had so far:
July 12, 2018 - Outpatient salpingo-oophorectomy (removal of ovaries and fallopian tubes; did not have a hysterectomy), Maryland Surgery Center
Aug 6, 2018 - Outpatient breast reduction (solely for the purpose of being able to have a nipple-sparing mastectomy), Sibley Surgical Center
Dec 19, 2018 - Mastectomy with reconstruction (inserting temporary implants called "expanders"). Stayed 1 night in Suburban hospital.
Jan 30, 2019 - Unexpected outpatient procedure on left side to head off brewing infection, Sibley Surgical Center. It worked!
On May 2, I'll be having my "exchange" surgery. Dr. Brown will remove the expanders and insert permanent implants. He'll also do fat grafting to smooth all the contours around the implants to make my breasts look as natural as possible. I've decided to have him do an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) at the same time! Back when I first learned about options for reconstruction, I had been excited about DIEP flap surgery, in which they use your belly fat and skin to create new breasts, meaning you get a flatter tummy at the same time. While I rejected that operation for many reasons you can read about in a previous blog post, I was disappointed to give up the tummy tuck idea. Then I learned that if they do it at the same time as the exchange surgery, I can save some $$ because they can charge a portion of the anesthesia and operating room costs to the covered procedure! So, Happy Birthday to me! We all have parts of our bodies that we struggle with, and my stomach is that part for me. Although this means my recovery will be a bit harder (I likely won't be able to row for 5 - 6 weeks), I think the result will be worth it.
In other news, Larry and I had two really fun trips recently. We spent a week in St. Petersburg, FL in early March with our dear friends Jim and Becky, where we celebrated our 30th anniversary. Then we went to NYC for 5 days at the end of March. (FYI - If you love jazz, you must go to Bill's Place in Harlem on a Friday or Saturday night - it was fantastic!) My friend Debra Mager visited us this past weekend from NC to teach a mosaics class for me and several friends. The cherry blossoms were in peak bloom, so we made a stop to see them in DC after I picked her up at the airport. My younger son Eli graduates from University of Maryland on May 23 with a degree in environmental science and technology and my older son Gabe will be here visiting from Israel to celebrate with us, along with other family from out of town!
My rowing team, Rock Creek Rowing, is back on the water as of last week. It's been great to get out there again on the Potomac! It's hard to get back in the swing of getting up at 4:30am to be down at practice by 5:30am. You'd think after 14 years of this, I'd be used to it, but no. But it's something I love to do and I have no intention of stopping. It will be hard to miss all of May and part of June as I recover from surgery, but I should be good from then on!
Happy Passover to those of you who celebrate it.
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