Brand New BOObies
hey there!
On Halloween this year, I reclaimed something cancer stole from me and had my fourth surgery in the last year. As my friends said best, October 31st was the perfect day for brand new BOObies 👻
Leading up to this surgery date, I will honestly share that I was struggling with the idea of going in for another surgery and putting my body through more trauma. Even though this is a cosmetic surgery it still has 4 weeks of restrictions and downtime. It felt like I would be taking two steps back after I had made so much progress with healing and gaining back energy.
Disclaimer: If you are on my medical team and reading this, don’t worry - I didn’t type this blog post on my computer and I am carefully navigating my restrictions!
Surgery is surgery, and it’s rough on your body no matter if it’s medically necessary or not.
Since my reconstruction of choice (for the time being) is implants. I wanted to share some interesting facts about breast implants I learned along the way.
Breast implants are considered a prosthesis, or medical device, and you have a special medical card you carry around with the details
When you have breast implants you need to take prophylactic antibiotics before you go to the dentist or have any procedures done that aren’t considered sterile, such as colonoscopies and endoscopies
Breast implant sizes are measured in cc’s, not cup sizes (30 cc’s is equivalent to a shot glass)
It is a myth that you need to have your implants replaced every 10-15 years. Truth is, you can leave your implants in as long as you want so long as you aren’t having complications or don’t want to change the sizing for personal reasons.
There is a variety of different shapes and profiles of breast implants to choose from, but a lot of times your surgeon will sit you up during surgery and “try on” different sizes and types to see what looks best. (honestly, this fact really took me off guard when I first learned about it!)
There are really only three options you have once you have a mastectomy. You can choose to go flat, opt for implants, or do a DIEP Flap surgery. The DIEP flap surgery is something I originally was super interested in as it uses your abdominal flaps to create breasts, so it’s 100% natural. But - this surgery is also much more invasive, leaves you with a big ole scar across your abdomen, and requires a few nights stay in the hospital and lot more recovery time. So it’s something I am keeping in my back pocket for the future. I am hoping that my body responds well to having implants and doesn’t reject them, I keep telling myself: “What is meant to be mine, will be.”
This surgery, compared to the other two I have had in the last year, was the least scary. Mostly because I knew I wasn’t waiting on pathology results or a new diagnosis when I woke up… and honestly that made it seemingly more difficult knowing this wasn’t a life-saving surgery. My mind was all over the place leading up to the date so much so that 2 days before my surgery I left my kitchen sink running for over an hour which caused substantial flooding in my kitchen, through our air vents, down to our basement. Oops!
Now that I am a surgery pro, I have established routines that help me feel good and at ease going into surgery. For example, lots of prunes! Plus, I usually like to do something fun to take my nerves off of the surgery, so I created this fun graphic and took some photos and videos with it before heading into surgery.
And four hours later… I woke up with brand new BOObies!
I am happy to report that the only complication with this surgery came when waking up from the anesthesia. When I woke up I was having troubles breathing, started coughing really bad, and scared myself so much so that I was crying in and out of sleep. The team at Mayo jumped in and provided me with humidified air and ran some CT scans to make sure nothing was wrong with my lungs. This made my recovery take a little longer than expected and even longer than my surgery itself!
When I woke up from my double mastectomy back in March I rated my pain an 8/10 and a 4/10 by the time I went home. This time around I rated my pain 6/10 and then 2/10 when I went home, hopefully that helps you paint the picture of how much more comfortable I was. I didn’t take any oral pain medications and actually never even picked them up from the pharmacy! I managed all pain with Tylenol only - which felt nice and helped me bounce back quicker.
When I came home I looked forward to enjoying this cake my lovely clients and friends gave me the night before - I mean come on, how cute!
The hardest part of recovering from breast surgeries are the restrictions which are: not carrying anything heavier than 10 lbs, no reaching above your head, sleeping solely on your back, and no repetitive motions such as vacuuming, unloading dishes, cleaning mirrors, brushing your hair, typing, etc. By not doing any of these movements, you are preventing the build up fluids that could attack the surgery site and cause infections. Any infections would cause me to need antibiotics administered in the hospital and could potentially risk losing my implant, therefore needing another surgery. And trust me, I don’t need nor want that. So I’ve had to take it very easy, stay lazy, and ask for a lot of help these past few weeks. Which as every human on earth knows, asking for help is hard.
The hardest part was the first 2 weeks where I was stuck at home and couldn’t drive. But once that restriction was lifted I feel like I got my life back again!
The surgery I had wasn’t as straight forward as just an exchange of the temporary tissue expander for breast implants, it was a little more intricate. My plastic surgeon likes to do fat grafting as part of the reconstruction as it helps achieve a more natural look. He harvested fat from 6 sites around my abdomen and flank and injected it back into my breast to surround the implant. My surgeon also used my fat to fill in the concave area where my port used to be in my chest. This means that my scar count from cancer is now up in the 20’s - here is a look as to what the fat grafting sites looked like as I recovered:
Honestly, a little liposuction was the silver lining of this surgery, a surgery I wouldn’t be getting if cancer hadn’t taken a part of my body. Overall I’m very happy with the results so far and hope everything continues to heal up nicely. I feel very grateful for my care team at Mayo and everyone who checked in on me before and after this big milestone in my cancer journey.
Okay now let’s switch gears… I want to share something i didjust 48 hours after my surgery…
I did my first speaking engagement at a cancer symposium!
Yup - before I even got the chance to see what my new boobies looked like, was able to take a shower, or take off any bandages… I went to Albert Lea and spoke at an event where I set up my first Brave Beautiful Boobies merch pop-up!
It was amazing to connect with others, learn from others, share my own story, and educate people on cold capping as many had not heard of the technology before. I cannot wait to do more speaking engagements and attend events like this in the future (but ideally they will not be this close to any major surgeries next time!)
I enjoyed having something to look forward to right after my surgery. Showing up to this event less than 48 hours after being under the knife on an operating table reminded me that yes, I can do hard things. I actually recently tallied up a list of the hard things I have experienced in my cancer journey and wanted to share it with you all here:
My Cancer Journey: By The Numbers
5 Mammograms
2 Biopsies
7 Ultrasounds
4 MRIs
4 CT Scans
1 PET Scan
222 Cold Caps
16 rounds of chemotherapy
2 hospital admissions, 5 nights total
4 chemotherapy drugs used to save my life
And some positive numbers…
4 successful surgeries
104 cards sent from loved ones
2 new BOObies
1 cancer fighter in remission
Looking forward, I am excited (and very very very grateful) to be enjoying the holidays with friends and family while celebrating my health and everything I have overcome in this last year and a half.
Wishing you a happy & heathy holiday season ahead,
Xo, Breanna
