I'm 5'8" & 138 lbs when I had my first surgery. I
had anatomical, crease incision, McGhan, textured.
But that was before the implant & explant....
More recently...
Left
Re-do
One
week post & Two weeks post
Amanda
My Continuing Saga...
More recently...
Left
Re-do
One
week post & Two weeks post
| ? |
My Story:
March 1999, I knew I wanted a breast lift so I made an appt with a surgeon; well he talked me into breast augmentation. I did research on him and augmentation and decided he was not the doc for me. He was, how should I put this, crabby. I made an appt with another surgeon but did not research him as well as the first surgeon. I wanted my surgery yesterday and he seemed to be pretty good. His nurse also had her ba with him as her surgeon, she looked great and I was ready to schedule. He told me that liposuction on the breasts would result in a breast lift. I didn’t see how this was possible but I am not a surgeon and the way he explained it did seem to make sense. I had to wait about a month, my surgery date was May 26. About a week before my surgery (it might have been 2 weeks), I had my pre-op appt. I was given all my prescriptions – antibiotics and painkillers, and went over everything about my operation. My surgery was in the surgery suite in the office. I began antibiotics about 2 days before surgery.My husband and I took a vacation from work starting on the 26th. He only took off that day and the next, my mother took care of me Friday (my surgery was on Wed). My surgery lasted 5 hours, was supposed to be around 1 ½ hours. I was on so many painkillers that I can’t remember the drive home, or my hubby running out of gas and us sitting in traffic for an hour waiting for the auto club. I was totally out of it until Sat, when my surgeon came to my house to take out the drain tubes. The left tube hurt BAD when he pulled it out, it also had, blood clots on the part that was inside me, the right one did not hurt at all. He then injected some kind of painkiller in me and I was out of it again until Sunday. One thing my hubby and I noticed is that I cannot go to stores when I am on pain pills, I seem to buy everything. I seemed to be having more problems with my left breast, it was extremely hard and sore, I thought this was normal and would go away after I recovered from surgery. I thought it just had not dropped yet.
About 3 weeks after my surgery I had a 102 temp. I called the nurse and they prescribed Cipro 750mg for me. The temp went away but I was still extremely sore in my left lymph node (by my armpit). At about 3 months after surgery I noticed this weird growth pushing my skin on the bottom of my left breast. It looked like bone but I knew it couldn’t be that. I called my surgeon and he had me come in so he could look at it. He said it was just scar tissue and the pain was something (I forget now, it has been awhile). He said it was nothing and I knew it was something so I made an appt with another surgeon (2 in fact). The next one I visited told me how he is always fixing my original surgeons mistakes, he should not be doing ba, he didn’t say it in those exact words but you get the gist of it. He also said that also lipo on breasts is definitely wrong, it was written in a plastic surgeon’s magazine or something. This surgeon said the implant was infected and needed to come out. Of course, this is not what I wanted to hear so I thought about and kept it in the back of my mind but did not intend to have surgery to remove the implant until I got another opinion. I went to the other surgeon, the same one I went to the very first time (the crabby guy) and he said it was just scar tissue and I shouldn’t have went to another surgeon and other things that had nothing to do with why I was there in the first place.
With 2 surgeons telling me nothing was wrong I decided I wasn’t in that much danger of having an implant removed. My mother told me to call my regular doc and have him look at it. I made the appt and went to him. Immediately he said it was an infection and I needed to have the tissue cut out. He couldn’t do it because he did not want to rupture the implant. I called my surgeon on the way back to work and left a message on the machine, since their office was closed. They called me back when I returned to work and told me to come down now. I went to his office and he did a small culture. They then gave me a shot with a very strong antibiotic. This antibiotic was awful! I wanted to lay on the floor and die. Phew! She then gave me the other half of the antibiotic.
Turns out I had a staph infection and a pseudomonas infection both of which could be cured by oral antibiotics. I was put on antibiotics indefinitely. Meanwhile the pain in my lymph node was still hurting bad. I went to the surgeons office once a week for a couple of weeks to have him monitor the open wound. I noticed that the granulous tissue was coming back and it was pretty disgusting there had also been draining since the culture.
We moved to Missouri 5 months after my surgery. I made an appt with a doctor and he did a culture. When it came back, the staph was gone but I now had 2 strains of pseudomonas. And the only way to get rid of one of the strains was by intravenous antibiotics. He conferred with a plastic surgeon and an infectious disease specialist and I had appt with both of them. He told me I would need to be in the hospital for 2 weeks receiving IV antibiotics or he would see if there was another way for me to receive the antibiotics. I had another appt with him that week and he told me I could have a “permanent” IV line to administer the antibiotics. I had to go to the hospital to have the PICC line inserted, the line started at my elbow and the line ended at the tip of my heart. The hospital also administered my first dose of antibiotic. I had a home health nurse come to my house to show me how to administer the antibiotic and a pharmacy delivered my meds. The nurse came out once a week. After I was on the antibiotic for a few days I went to the disease specialist, she said I would probably have to have the implant removed and she would call to tell the surgeon’s staff that she was referring me. My lymph nodes were starting to hurt even worse than a couple of months ago (this was continuous pain from the day my surgeon removed the drain), so I told her I would probably be having the implant removed (I knew that if the implant is infected than there is no way to get antibiotics in to kill off the infection). Went to the surgeon a day later and set up an appt for removal, they were very nice and I had an appt in 2 weeks at the hospital for removal. I knew this would be the only way to make the pain stop.
2 weeks later and we are at the hospital. Not much to tell here, had to wait and wait and wait in the waiting room. Had to get in the dressing gown and take out my navel ring and wait some more with my hubby. After the surgery, the first thing I remember is waking up, ha! Woke up in the recovery room, I was crying which is normal for me after surgery) and I was really thirsty. They got me a small cup of cold coke, boy that was good, and kept having to fill up the cup. They brought me back to a room where my hubby was and I wanted to see what they did. My boobs were the same size, my left was a little bigger. I thought they had taken the wrong implant out and had my hubby and the nurse look. She couldn’t tell so she looked at my chart, my breast was just swollen from surgery. I must say, the nurses as the hospital were awesome. I also did not have 1 ounce of pain. I had a ton of bandages where my ps took the implant out and I had a drain. I tried to get up and found out I was nauseous, kind of surprised me, so I very carefully had my hubby dress me. Got in a wheelchair and went home. I was still on the IV antibiotics for another week, the day before Christmas. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was to have no pain, I felt better than I had in months! The first day was the bloodiest. My hubby thought I was bleeding to death. When he changed the gauze the 2nd time, I was leaned toward my left. A lot of blood came out….my son was staring, he was very scared but we quickly reassured him. Dan made me call my ps who reassured us the bleeding was normal and it would subside, he was right. I could sleep in my bed the first night and roll over, I couldn’t roll over without my breast hurting before!
Once a week I had to go into the surgeon’s office and have my breast drained. They stuck a huge needle in and pulled out a ton of old blood. This procedure really hurt so I had him numb my skin first the next couple of times. A month after surgery I developed a huge hematoma. I had an appt for Fri but the night before it drained through the needle tracks and was thankfully not as sore the next day. I then had to keep going back to have him drain the hematoma (clotted blood). I had the hematoma for a month, then it magically went away. Now it is 5 months after my explant surgery and I am getting silicone, overs this time. Waiting for my ps to call the insurance company (they covered my explant surgery) so I can set a date!
I went in for my consult and am clear for surgery. I might not be able to get silicone but as long as both my breasts are the same size, I don’t care. I do want silicone really bad because it is a lot more natural, but oh well. I’m having surgery on my birthday, April 21st, at 2:00. I can’t really get excited, at least not as excited as my first surgery, maybe it is because I already have one big boob ? and I know what is going to happen. Plus, if I don’t think about it, the day will come a lot faster. It has to be good luck to have my surgery on my birthday, I can’t believe I got that date! They had a cancellation, otherwise I would have had to wait until May.
