Final Revision

I kept meaning to post about my upcoming revision surgery and it all happened quite fast so here I am on the other side posting now.  I found out that we had met our annual deductible for insurance and so I called Dr. Craigie’s office to see if we could quickly fit in a surgery before the end of November.  I really wanted to see if we could do anything to create a nipple for the left breast.  That nipple had not survived the first surgery and I really wanted something there to match the sides.  I also wanted to see if he could do anything to help with the fullness I was missing on the right breast.  I knew that this surgery was all about me feeling complete and completely put back together.  I traveled to Charleston to see him on the 18th….there and back in one day is an all day adventure but I had to see him this day.  We came up with a plan.  My mom and I drove back to Charleston on the 25th, spent the night and got ready for an early surgery on the 26th.

What Dr. Craigie did was take a cone shaped graft of my right nipple and grafted that onto my left breast.  Blows my mind to think about how this could even work but it did.  He also harvested fat from my legs via liposuction to inject into my right breast.  This was challenging because I’ve been so diligently working out for the past year and so he had to harvest from 6 spots.

I stayed overnight in the hospital and was discharged on the 27th (the day before Thanksgiving) with a compression garment that goes from my ribs to my mid shins.  I had no drains and only one dressing over the grafted nipple that they actually stitched down in 4 places so it wouldn’t move at all.  I also had a nipple shield that I have to wear to just keep any compression off the breast.

Overall I’m doing well.  My legs are terribly bruised and very very sore.  I’m missing being able to workout and take my weekly trapeze class but I am beyond thrilled with the results of the surgery.  If you can handle the surgery the revisions are really so amazing and have done wonders.  I can honestly say that without the revision surgeries I think I would be really struggling more with my decision to do this.  I took some pictures of the bruising last night for those who might need to do lipo…it is painful.  But, I am so happy to know that everything in my chest is 100% “julie”…and not man made.  I’m like a transformer…just move my parts around to create a new look. HA!