On Friday afternoon I got a call from Nemesis to come in on Monday for a pre-op.  I thought I’d done that already, but this time it was with Dr. Demo, not just some robots administrators.  I would need to come in at 1pm.  Could I push that to 2pm?  No, she’s coming in to the clinic at that time JUST FOR YOU.

I am at your beck and call.

Monday rolled around and I shuffled my calendar a bit to make the appointment time work.  Then, wouldn’t you know it? Someone from the office called to ask if I could come in at 2pm instead.  Alrighty then.

But she was on time for me, and in fact spent OVER AN HOUR with me – explains why the appointment got pushed back in the first place. We are both chatty so we were doomed! It was a very helpful appointment. I did learn that they will not be able to save the nipple.  Apparently Dr. Demo, Dr. FixIt, and Dr. Zap have been debating this. Dr. Demo was showing me the reasoning and explaining all the details as to why she and Dr. Zap did not think they could save it.  She pulled up my MRI, measured the distance between the nearest tumor and the nipple, talked about the skin around the nipple, how it gets its blood flow, explained that the nipple is made of ductal tissue, which is the cancerous tissue in my case…

I interrupted. “Let me make it easy for you. I’m 45. Done with my nipples. My husband won’t care. I don’t want to do this again. AWAY WITH THE NIPPLE!”

I really am ok with this.  There are multiple options here, including Dr. FixIt “creating” a nipple, getting a 3D nipple tattoo, or my favorite option, beautiful breast tattoos like the example on the right.

The conversation moved on to standard pre-op stuff. They are not really as strict as the paperwork would lead you to believe, and I can pack a small bag with my cell phone in it, etc. She said I could bring my Kindle but I probably would not want it. Dr. FixIt will go over all the discharge instructions with me, but yes, I will have at least one drain. She recommended comfy button-down shirts to wear to/from the hospital, and probably for several days afterwards. She explained that the spinal block will wear off after ~36 hours – did you know that studies are starting to show that certain types of anesthesia actually reduce recurrence of cancer, by keeping stress levels low? Cool stuff.

Apparently I should NOT work out the morning of the surgery.  I was really joking when I asked this but the look on her face was hilarious…