Plastic Surgeon - Sloan Kettering NYC

I met with the plastic surgeon today. Her name is Dr. Colleen McCarthy. Imagine that, an Irish doc, how cool! I liked her right away. The appointment was over two hours of her explaining the various types of reconstruction. She took a lot of time to explain everything in detail and even drew pictures explaining how each type of surgery is done. She explained the pros and cons of each type.

The type of reconstruction we both thought would be good will require over 12 hours in surgery. I would not be able to get a surgery date to do immediate reconstruction until Nov 17th. All the doctors say that the cancer really won't progress in that amount of time. I get that on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level I picture it getting bigger everyday. I really just want it out. I asked Dr. McCarthy if I could just do a lumpectomy with sentinal node biopsy now and then do the larger procedure on Nov 17th. She said that decision would be up to Dr. Sclafani since she is the breast surgeon, but from a reconstruction viewpoint that would be fine. She also said I could just do a mastectomy on the right side and have an immediate implant placed. I could then do the risk reducing left mastectomy and the whole flap reconstruction at a later date, poss Nov.

I should find out in the next day or so which way I will be able to go. The whole process will require a 7 day hospital stay. That is a bit of a bummer, but having it all at once and over with would be nice.