Preventive Mastectomy: Fat Grafting Surgery Week 1

Posted November 28, 2016 by Prairie Wife - 13 comments

Note: I decided to include real pictures of my body during my preventive mastectomy in this post because I know that it will help to prepare other women as they begin this journey, as well as help educate family members and friends. I hope that you my readers, will be respectful of that choice, and if you are offended at the thought it’s best for you to stop reading here.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are ready to hit the ground running with all of your holiday to-do’s

Last week I underwent my third and final surgery, fat grafting.

You can read a bit more about the process in this post, so I’m going to skip all the why’s and hows and get down to business.

At this point, The Cowboy and I are pros at this whole surgery thing, and heading down to Denver (4.5 hour drive) is old news by this point. Our preop appointment was pretty standard. We talked about what the procedure involved and what my recovery would be like. We ran into a little snag when my Plastic Surgeon (PS) mentioned what he would do for the second fat grafting surgery. I knew that most people undergo multiple fat grafting surgeries but, I had thought I made it clear that one and done was best for me. Frankly, I was fine with how everything looked before! I was just doing this because my PS talked me into it (in the nicest, most rational way possible). While my PS appreciated my high approval rating of his work, he knew he could do better and wanted the chance (having a PS that is a perfectionist isn’t a bad thing)…we discussed again that I was willing to give it a shot once but that I was done.

Done with surgery.

Done with recovery.

Done with taking time away from my family and The Cowboy.

Thankfully my PS understood (and knows I can change my mind and come back for another fat grafting at any time) and being the amazing man he is, kept that in mind when he did my surgery.

We headed to the surgical center at 6:30am on Tuesday and after checking in and all that prep I was ready to go take a nap.

When I woke up after 2 hours of surgery, I was a bit sore when I moved my legs (the fat was removed from my thighs) but really not in any pain. One of my wounds was leaking a bit so once that was under control, I was allowed to get dressed and head to the hotel for a 24-hour stay close by my surgeon. My doctor had no specific clothing requirements (other than no bra for 4 weeks) so I pulled on a tight pair of leggings to wear for the next day. After talking to The Cowboy, I learned that my PS put 110cc of fat into each breast. On average only 40% of fat tends to “stick” so I can plan to keep 50cc or so of fat (100cc is a cup size) on each side in the end. Knowing that this was his one shot, he added an extra thick layer compared to what he normally does in hopes that it would round out the shape (my implants looked a bit square on the bottom) and cover/reduce the wrinkles and divots. You can see by the pics (before, 24hr, 1 week) that there is a clear difference between the before and after.  I’ll have to wait 3 weeks to get an idea of what the final product will look like.

In the hotel, I was stiff and sore when I moved and randomly dozed off and on like a granny (my usual routine) but never felt the need to take pain meds. The drive home was uneventful, and I’m SO thankful to CollegeBFF for holding down the fort while we were gone for three days (and her mom for all the great meals she made for us)!

I spent the rest of last week laying around (but making sure I got up every few hours to walk around) and relaxing. I wasn’t nearly as tired from this one as the last few, so by the end of day three, I was over the whole resting thing. I helped make a few of the dishes for our Thanksgiving dinner, but The Cowboy and our good friend took care of most of it. I was able to watch the new Gilmore Girls (epic) and watched two more seasons of Gossip Girl (guilty pleasure), and started into The Crown (so good and makes me feel closer to Mary Poppins) As the days went on, the bruising on my thighs reached epic proportions…and continues to grow.

In the pics, you can see the wounds where he went in to gather fat. The long thin lines are from the seams of my leggings. I was really worried about those but every pair of pants I wear made the marks. My PS assured me it shouldn’t leave any permanent dents (I don’t wear any at night to make sure).  The best way to describe the pain is sore muscles/tender. Imagine the day after a killer workout soreness. That’s how it feels. It hasn’t been bad enough for me to take pain meds, but I can say that LittleMissH running up to me and grabbing my legs did make me squeal! Wearing tight leggings helps because it keeps the tender skin/fat/muscle from wiggling and jiggling. I’m bummed I didn’t instantly have thinner thighs, but my PS let me know ahead of time that it would take at least 3 weeks (and usually 6) to see any kind of change. Everything is swollen and working on healing, there is no way to know right now how it will look in the end.

The Cowboy went back to work today, and I’m back in charge. Other than trying to limit my arm movement, moving a bit slower than usual and feeling more tired at the end of the day…I’m back to doing everything I usually do!

Click here to see how things look after 2 weeks.

Categories: Fat Grafting Surgery, Preventive Mastectomy

Tags: , breast cancer, breast reconstruction, fat grafting, liposuction, plastic surgery, preventive mastectomy, surgery, week one