Consultation
My first visit with the plastic surgeon was about an hour long. We went over options and talked about the procedure. We discussed what was going to happen in both of the surgeries and the visits required in between. Because I needed radiation therapy my total treatment with him was going to be about 10 months.
Decisions
This really was just personal preferences like size, shape, material and placement. Because I was there for cancer treatment and hadn’t considered this in my life before I let him make most of the decisions. I trusted that even explaining everything to me he could make better decisions than I could. I’d rather the expert make them from professional experience rather than my personal preference.
He teamed up with my breast surgeon and they agreed on a date for the first surgery based on my treatment schedule. I needed to be about 6-8 weeks past my chemo to let my body rest, but not much longer because we needed to know if the cancer responded to the treatment.
Pictures Along The Way
3 times I “got to” (had to) stand topless in front of his photo backdrop so he could take pictures. Once before at my consultation, once after the first surgery and once at the end after we were done. With breast cancer treatment one tends to get over any modesty real quick.
Breast cancer treatment is forgetting what it feels like to meet new people with your shirt still on! Haha!