The Boobie Surgeon

I was really excited about my appointment yesterday. When I heard that the next step was to see the breast surgeon, it seemed like things were starting to roll and I was going to get some answers. Not so much.
Kora had a doctor appointment bright and early yesterday morning. Getting the kids dressed, fed and out of the house by 7:45 is always something to be proud of. We followed the usual routine, check in, watch some toons, vitals, get seen by the doc (poop), get a couple shots and leave. Kora has a thing for pooping in her diaper right before the doctor comes in to do her exam...lovely. We learned everything we already knew, she is a short, chubby, happy, and smart little monkey :) We came home, cleaned, ate lunch and took Hayden to school. Kora napped while I filled out some new patient paperwork for the Cancer Center online. Isn't it nifty how nowadays we can do all that paperwork crap ahead of time? I love it. I don't have to arrive early to my appointments and sit there filling out paper after paper with the same name, birth date, address etc etc. Its quite convenient.
I swear during this whole thing I feel more and more like an actual mutant. I was in the waiting room of the Breast Center at Yale and the nurse came out and called my name; I could see a look of surprise on her face when I stood up. She even checked my patient bracelet to make sure she "had the right person". I'm sure that is what the bracelets are for, but I HONESTLY think she wanted to double check. I mean, I understand. Here I was a 25 year old, in a waiting room with all these women at least in their 40's and 50's. It does make me wonder how uncommon this is though. So she lead us back into a small cozy room with nice chairs and a table with some pamphlets. She left to get the vital machine and checked my temp, blood pressure and asked a few questions about why I was there. We were then lead into a normal exam room where I changed from the waist up into a gown. This, of course, is my husband's favorite part ;) A doctor that works with Dr. Grube (my breast surgeon) came in and introduced herself and started asking the same questions about my health and family history that Ive gone over a million times. I was surprised at how shocked she was. She literally told me that my family history is so tragic she felt like leaning over and giving me a hug. I told her that for me, its normal.
She started to give me an exam and talked to me about breast feeding and my kids and how she also breastfed hers, but her husband was a stay at home dad. I couldn't help, but laugh at the thought of Joey being a stay at home dad. I'm pretty sure he is happy to leave the craziness and go to work most days. Anyways, so she said she didn't find any lumps or anything out of the ordinary, which is always good to hear. We talked over my options and I was proud that I knew the lingo, but she ensured me there wasn't going to be a quiz :) She explained to me a bit about the different types of cancers and something about estrogen and triple negative and some other stuff I didn't quite understand, but doesn't pertain to me anyways. I flat out told her that I didn't have interest in doing any sort of prevention other than prophylactic mastectomy. There are other options like constant mammograms, MRIs, breast exams, medications. For me, honestly, I'm not about to wait around to get the cancer and then do something about it. If I did wait until they found something, I would then have to get a mastectomy AND go through Chemo...NO THANKS. The only real option for me, is to take the babies off.
I had to wait a bit after she left for the surgeon, Dr. Grube, to come in. Joey was pretty bored and told me a Chuck Norris joke that I couldn't stop laughing over, its too inappropriate to repeat, but it helped to lighten my mood. Dr. Grube went over what the previous doctor had jotted down about my history and pointed out how aggressive this form of cancer is. She also gave me an exam and started talking about some options I have for surgery. The best thing about the whole appointment was seeing pictures of her work. I had seen some pictures before, but not many. They looked pretty dang good if you ask me! She talked with me about the different ways they take out the breast tissue and how they can save the nipple or take it and rebuild a new one. She made sure to inform me that once you remove all of this tissue and have reconstruction, feeling will be almost gone completely. For most women this is the main reason they don't have the surgery done. To me, its just a small price I'm going to pay to keep my life and see my children grow.
In closing she said she would set up appointments for me to have an MRI (not quite sure why) and to see a plastic surgeon to further go over the reconstructive part of my surgery. I'm assuming that is where I will get more answers on the surgery itself. After those two appointments there will be a medically clearing appointment to clear me for surgery and then on to the big event! The time frame we are looking at is doing my surgery around January or so. Its quite amazing at how quick they are about all of this, it helps me in keeping with my decisions, to know that they are on board.