Word of warning on breast implants

   If you've had breast augmentation more than 10 years ago, be sure to ask your doctor about getting a breast MRI to check the stability of your implants. They don't last forever! Doctors recommend implants be replaced every 10 years. The problem is that implants can easily leak without your knowledge. And those leakages won't show up on your annual mammogram.
   My friend Liz, who just had her mastectomy last week, found out after the operation that her previous implants (she'd had them 24 years!) had been leaking a long time and had created quite a mess. Thankfully, the discovery of breast cancer had led her to the mastectomy stage and the old implants had to be removed anyway, but her doctors said it was a sorry sight. She's thinking now that the cancer may have been a signal that the implants had gone awry and were polluting her system. So perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, she said.
   Whatever the case, it's a warning sign to all women out there who had breast augmentation years ago. Be sure you're getting checked with breast MRIs. Your regular mammograms won't decipher problems with the implants.
   And for those of you who've gone through breast reconstruction due to cancer, be sure you keep a close eye on your implants. You won't be having mammograms anymore, so your annual MRIs should uncover any issues.
    Seems we women must always be on our guard. So please heed this message if you've had implants in for more than 10 years!

Brings back memories

   A close friend is having a bilateral mastectomy today, with my breast surgeon, at the same hospital, on the same day of the week, at the same time, as mine almost a year ago.
   She has breast cancer, too, similar to mine, though hers is more concentrated and she's having her surgery first to be followed by chemo.
   It brings back memories of my own surgery. I wasn't really scared. I had an idea of what I'd look like after, but the docs never tell you all the details until they have to. I knew I'd have drains, but I had no idea what that would be like. I had no concept of how truly difficult it would be to move after the surgery. Climbing the stairs to our second-floor bedroom was tough. Getting up from a prone position (I did a lot of laying on the couch) was virtually impossible alone.
   I remember the hospital stay. I remember waking up and my husband telling me that everything went well. I heard for the first time that they'd taken out lymph nodes. After that it was a blur till the next day.
  I remember being annoyed that all night long the intercoms were blasting with requests for nurses. Whatever happened to pagers? Calls for every nurse were broadcast into every room. How could anyone sleep, even under the influence of morphine?
  I remember that the call button fell off the bed. Of course, I had to go to the restroom in the middle of the night and couldn't reach the call button. I remember trying to get a nurse's attention. I tried yelling, best I could. Over and over. It was no use. Finally a nurse came in and helped me. It was the worst feeling, not being able to get up on your own.
   The hospital food was inedible. Some friends brought ice cream the next night. I was overjoyed! But the spike in my blood sugar had the nurse wanting to give me an insulin shot. I told her it was just the ice cream and she backed off.
   I couldn't wait to get out of there and get back home....to sleep in peace, to relax...to worry about emptying the drains. What fun!
   I've forwarned my friend and her husband and offered our help. I wish I'd had someone to do that for me! But I feel good now being able to help someone else. But oh boy, does it bring back a lot of memories....

Great Expectations

   I went to see the plastic surgeon this past week for my two-month visit after the last surgery. Poor Dr. Askren was grateful for the story in the newspaper but embarrassed at the same time. He says I've made his job more difficult now because everyone expects him to be absolutely perfect. Another patient, he told me, came in waving my story and asking, "Well, if you really do make boobs better than God, how come she had to have surgery twice?" He laughed. He's taking it all in good humor!
   I did have to have surgery twice, but it's not that abnormal. There's no way the plastic surgeon can know from the get-go how the implants will rest in the skin that's been stretched (or in my case, some cadaver skin was added). And if you're going to have brand-new boobs, you certainly don't want droopy ones.
   Dr. Askren insists I wait another month to see how the implants settle. I can't imagine them moving, I told him. They feel hard as rocks now and pretty darn tight. He checked them out, told me to massage them so there's movement of the implants and he'll see me in a month. That was just a few days ago and I can already feel a difference in the two breasts. One is definitely looser than the other, but they look pretty good to me. Who knows what could happen in another month. Dr. Askren says there's something about the three-month wait...that certain things seem to change about that time.
   Who could have ever imagined that doctors would be able to totally re-create a woman's breast like this? It truly is amazing when you think about what goes into it. I'm grateful the science is there for me, and grateful for doctors like Dr. Carl Askren who've made it an art.

Something to celebrate

   As you're enrolling in medical insurance this month, here's something interesting you may want to celebrate. While insurance rates continue to climb and employers continue to push more back on employees, those women who've suffered with breast cancer do indeed have something to celebrate!
  Believe it or not, it was 12 years ago when the federal government passed the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act (1998). It requires group health plans to offer mastectomy patients benefits for:

•     All stages of reconstruction of the breast on which the mastectomy was performed;
•     Surgery and reconstruction of the other breast to produce a symmetrical appearance;
•     Prostheses; and
•     Treatment of physical complications of the mastectomy, including lymphedema.

   I can tell you that I faced each of these situations and I'm incredibly thankful for the passage of this act. Without it, I'd be deformed the rest of my life. With it, I have the ability to return to a sense of normalcy.
   Just one thing we women can all be thankful for!!!

Gotta laugh

  My daughter, Lauren, a senior in college on the East Coast, neglected to call to tell us she placed second in a horse competition on Sunday (Whoohoo!!). She was way too busy competing and then donning a banana costume for a Halloween party. Really, at almost 21!
  But she wasn't too busy to call me yesterday at work with this: "Mom, is it true that when you're asked to be in someone's wedding, you have to pay for your own dress?"
  These are obviously matters of greater significance at this age. "Yes, of course," I told her. "Unless the family's really rich and offers, you have to pay for your own stuff."
  "That stinks," she replied.
   "Gotta go now, Mom. Love you." Click.
    Gotta laugh.

You Never Walk Alone

 When I worked on the painting for California Oncology's art show in January of 2010, I worked with two other breast cancer patients. Both told me their stories. They were both much farther along in the process. Both had the kinds of stories to tell that made me say, "OMG, you're scaring the heck out of me." One had a recurrence; the other had problems with the reconstruction.
  Both women, though, talked about it all with humor, laughing their way through the stories. Both had incredible attitudes and I'm glad I was partnered with them. Even though they scared the heck out of me, I left feeling good, feeling optimistic and feeling like they taught me a thing or two: One, there's generally someone out there worse off than you and they seem to manage it pretty well, so you better not let yourself get taken in. Two, you've got to look at life, not at the cancer. And third, there's always someone out there walking with you.

    That's why we named our painting. "You Never Walk Alone," a depiction of a cancer victim's flip-flops gathering a crowd as she walks along the beach. Here it is. It hangs in the hallway at Califonia Oncology, along with about 12 others done by cancer patients with the help of local artists.