Dear Diary,
So let’s talk more about my care team…I had many choices and met with dozens of people. I made the decision to keep PAMF for Oncology, I met with Dr. Bryant Sheh and he got me right away. You know I’m very curious and detail oriented. He was able to be upfront with me regarding my prognosis and understands my desire not to do chemo. He answered all of my questions in a way that made me comfortable. He was also upfront that yes, I will be experiencing menopausal symptoms early and yes, I’ll probably have to go through menopause again when I’m older. (that sucks but whatever…this is my life now) The other onc I met was at Stanford, she was very knowledgeable but she just wasn’t it for me. I wasn’t comfortable with her because it was never a conversation. It was just her telling me shit and I never had a chance to speak. Would she be great for someone who isn’t as doesn’t ask a million questions? Yes, my lola would have loved her. For my surgical team I have chosen Team Peled. I’ll get into this more but basically it’s the Drs. Peled. They’re an amazing duo and I’m blessed to have them. Dr. Tom Fischer rounds out my current team as my reproductive endocrinologist….he’s my fertility doctor. In addition I have Dr. Chelsea Bowman as my primary care doctor and Dr. Nguyen 2.0 as my OBGYN.
Team Peled is Drs. Anne and Ziv Peled. Dr. Anne is a double board certified surgeon in both general surgery and plastic surgery. She is one of the few oncoplastic surgeons who is also a breast surgeon. Another reason for selecting her is because she also breast cancer survivor and truly knows what it feels like to be the patient and understands my desire to look and feel like the current version of myself. Dr. Ziv is also both a plastic and peripheral nerve surgeon. They are a husband and wife duo who have pioneered their own procedure which preserves nerve sensation. I chose them for my mastectomy specifically for this sensation preserving mastectomy. They are the only people in the world that have this unique skill set.
The option which I strongly considered was a lumpectomy on the left side and reduction and lift on the right side. If the Peled’s were not able to do their surgery I would have gone with the team Dr. Jean Bao from Stanford as my breast surgeon and Dr. John Paro as my plastic surgeon. Typically the breast surgeon performs the mastectomy while a plastic surgeon comes behind at the same time or a later date to add in implants or expanders. If I did a lumpectomy and lift Dr. Bao would have removed the lump on the left and Dr. Paro would have removed the same amount on the right and lifted both for symmetry. This was a great option but just wasn’t what I wanted.
Because Dr. Anne is both an oncoplastic surgeon and breast surgeon it’s one set of hands, she knows exactly what she has done and does not need to second guess. Dr. Ziv is there to perform the nerve graft and preserve the nerves that will be cut when my breasts are cut open to remove the tissue. The plan is an incision under the nipple straight down…it will basically look like lollipops. The nerves will go around the implants rather than through like in normal breast tissue. Honestly I don’t care what the scars look like because I have other scars from other surgeries, everything will eventually fade and if they don’t then it’s not a big deal. I would care if my implants rippled and showed. But scars are not something I worry about. I remember after my gallbladder surgery I was a self conscious about my scars. I was always wondering if they would be turn off the men I would be dating…now I give zero fucks.
We also talked about going back at the end of the year to do some fat grafting if I don’t like how they look…free liposuction!!! Sign me the fuck up!!! Since my boobs have a lot of volume there’s a chance my implants may not fall like my natural boobs and I might not be super happy with the aesthetic. I might want to inject some fat towards the center of my boobs to hide potential ripples.
When deciding on my mastectomy another option that I’m a good candidate for is a diep flap where they basically take a blood vessels and tissue from your abdomen and move them to your chest wall and create new boobs using this tissue and excess fat…finally a perk to being fat…I could have gotten a free tummy tuck and new boobs that are 100% mine, no implants, just reconstructed boobs from my own body. Now this seems like a damn good idea at first…who doesn’t want a free tummy tuck and to keep their body as naturally as possible? Well…as much as I would have loved a free tummy tuck, a flap isn’t always going to work, there’s a chance the microsurgery of attaching these blood vessels don’t properly attach, I would have a GIANT scar across my belly which I’m not worried about but if I decided to have a child I did that for nothing because bye bye tummy tuck. If I decided to have a child, I can swap my implants for a flap and get that tummy tuck afterwards…hello FREE mommy makeover.
I know that I’m not fat fat, I am an averaged size American woman,…my pants are size 12 or 14 depending on the brand and cut, my tops are a large and bra is a 38DD…I know that I am confident…I’m not always proud of my body but fuck it I’m confident in it. I know that there are people who are heavier, there are people who are lighter, do I know that my body is different than it was when I was 21? Absolutely! Do I ever think I will have that body again? Chances for being 98 lbs ever again are slim to none and honestly I’m ok with that. Everything in my body is proportional and I’m ok with it all. There’s a line from a Chris Brown and Lil Dicky song called Freaky Friday, “Wait, think it through for a sec. If you’re hurting me then you’re only hurting yourself. But wait, I love myself.” Shaming myself for the choices I’ve made or for the way I look does nothing for me, loving, accepting, and being proud of myself for all the lumps, scars, extra fat and everything that is seen in a negative way makes me who I am. I know that I have good symmetry in my face and symmetry equals beauty, I have great skin and rarely get blemishes, my brows are good, my lips are not too large and not too small, and of course ya girl has them chubby cheeks when combined with my RBF makes me look like a pissed off toddler but yanno what…that’s my damn face and if you don’t like don’t look at it. You don’t have to think I’m pretty or find me attractive. I still think I’m beautiful and that’s really all that matters. -G
Gel's Sueso 