I had a mastectomy in November, with a temporary expander placed as I had to undergo radiotherapy.
Had a bit of an extreme reaction to the radiotherapy which resulted in massive inflammation in the reconstruction and an infection, anyway - after weeks of antibiotics and draining I had to have the implant removed, this was done last week. Ultimately I am going to go for the Diep flap recon (i eat enough cake :) ) but the plastic surgeon I saw put the risk too high right now to do this especially as I will need a bilateral doing cos i am BRCA2, and said I was probably looking at the end of the year before it could be done.
My surgeon is talking about potentially putting another temp implant in within the next 3-4weeks to save the skin and nipple. I am being treated privately, so that might make a difference.
He also said the advice was constantly changing right now!
Glad to hear this op has gone ahead. I was diagnosed in mid March with DCIS and I'm waiting for elective surgeries to start. May I ask how long you had been waiting before the pandemic? I'm trying to work out how long I might have to wait.
I was diagnosed with DCIS end of January. I had my lumpectomy end of February. Then I was scheduled for a mastectomy with implant reconstruction end of March but this got cancelled due to covid. Finally, I had my operation on 20th of May. Hope this is helpful and yours won't take too long.
Wonder if anyone can throw some light on this. So I am waiting for the op date which has been put on hold due to Covid and today I get a call from an Operation Assessment nurse. We spent 10 mins going through all the questions and I am booked in to give some blood tomorrow. I am a bit puzzeled as to what is going on here, surely this should have been scheduled with an actual op date? Keen to speak to anyone who has experienced this or understands more about this.
I am also awaiting mastectomy with immediate implant reconstruction for DCIS. My diagnosis has taken months and months as it is a big area and I had to have multiple biopsies before they were satisfied that it was DCIS. Now they have done an MRI and think they may have found an invasive bit, so the goal posts keep moving. Very worrying as I've been in the dark since end of Feb. The department I am with had a meeting about restarting reconstructive surgery last week but have not yet been given to the go ahead to resume as it's "not safe". The surgeon called me last week to say that ideally he'd like to operate on me at end of June. I just spoke to them again today and they say they will update me next week. At the moment they are only booking operating lists for 15 days ahead so that the patients can self isolate for 14 days prior. I imagine if you have been invited for blood tests they are planning on operating about 2 weeks later. It may be different where you are though. Each NHS Trust seems to have a slightly different approach. It's the waiting and uncertainty which is doing my head in.
I just spotted that you wrote this post on Monday so I hope you got some more clarity when you went for the blood test. Let me know how it goes. I am getting my treatment in Burnley.
I'm sorry you are waiting so long, and here's me complaining!
Unfortunately there is nothing to really report. I went for the blood test which was to identify my blood group. The nurse wasn't aware that I didn't have an op date. My mother has convinced herself that I will be getting it in at least two weeks since going through the pre assessment which to be fair would probably be right in normal circumstances........but it's not normal is it. I believe these are just processes that are driven by some unknown hospital metric and nothing to do with whether you have a date or not and are simply not joined up. I'm sorry about your recent possible (invasive) diagnosis. It's hard enough being told that you have a large area of DCIS and then this. Fingers crossed that it's not and all will be well once we get our boobs lopped off! Zvigo has had her op so hopefully all NHS Trusts will follow suit. I will update you if I hear anything my end (I live in Northumberland).
