Why I Chose Fat Grafting to Restore My Breast After My Lumpectomy
It wasn’t vanity that made me want to return to normal.
A diagnosis of breast cancer is shocking and disconcerting for any woman (or man) who receives it. No one would dispute that fact. The initial questions and concerns are serious, life altering and, potentially, deadly. Surgery? Radiation? Chemotherapy? Adjuvant therapy going forward to discourage a risk of recurrence?
Yes, I faced all of those issues in the early days after my diagnosis of Stage 1A, Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. Those concerns occupied my mind full time and haunted my sleep for the first few months. After my surgery (a lumpectomy, a decision made by me and supported by my surgeon) and twenty radiation treatments, I was finished with the physical treatments on my body and ready to move forward with my life.
For many women, this is where the story ends. Life goes on and they hope they have seen the last of the disease. Oh, there are many women who require chemotherapy in this process. There are many more who are prescribed an aromatase inhibitor, a medication prescribed to hormone receptive positive patients to reduce the risk of recurrence in the future. All women, I’m sure, are eternally grateful to be alive and to have survived a diagnosis with potentially devastating consequences. They deal with the consequences and learn to cope with whatever physical changes that breast cancer has inflicted on their bodies. They try not to think too much about future risk and the very real threat (although not a foregone conclusion) of a possible recurrence. There will always be a physical reminder of the encounter with the breast cancer beast.
From the very first appointment with my breast surgeon, she mentioned to me the possibility of fat grafting after surgery to restore the shape and contour of my breast.
From the very first appointment, I set my mind to the idea that I would definitely pursue the option of fat grafting.
My breast surgeon told me to wait a year after the lumpectomy before considering the procedure — enough time to allow my injured breast to settle into its new shape and form after having the malignant tissue removed.
One year and one day after my surgery I was sitting in the plastic surgeon’s office. I was rather “fortunate.” I hesitate to use such a word in any way, shape or form when referring to any aspect of a diagnosis of breast cancer. No one is “fortunate” with breast cancer. Still, I met many women in my journey who suffered far, far more in terms of side effects, disfigurement and life altering issues. I felt strong in my resolve. My husband was a rock and my friends and family were every form of supportive any one could ever hope to have.
My plastic surgeon was kind, compassionate and, as I would soon discover, an artistic genius in restoring my body to my pre-surgery form. He explained the procedure to me. He would extract numerous small amounts of fat from my abdomen and inject them into the divot in my breast. In the process, he would use a scalpel to release stitches that held the puckered area in place. The procedure would be performed in the hospital surgical area, full anesthesia, and — here’s the part that made me cringe a little at first — this same procedure would probably need to be repeated a second, and possibly a third, time to achieve the results I was looking for. After explaining everything to me, he left the office and told me to think about it and call for an appointment when I knew my decision — no high pressure sales pitch. Well, I knew my decision when I first stepped into his office — I made the appointment right then and there for a date four weeks away.
There was never a moment of doubt in my mind about my decision. My husband, on the other hand, expressed his opinion that I had already been through so much and he didn’t want me to have to deal with several more months of discomfort and more medical procedures if I had to go through the fat grafting procedure two or three times over six or more months. I think he just did this to allow me a way out of the decision to move forward if I so desired.
I didn’t want a way out — I wanted a way straight through the middle. I would do this thing. The day of surgery was easy enough. My surgery was scheduled for one o’clock in the afternoon, but complications in a procedure the surgeon performed prior to mine left me dangling in the pre-op preparation area until nearly five o’clock. After that, it was smooth sailing. When I awoke from surgery, I was wearing a very cool sports bra type of garment that compressed me and held everything tightly in place. I was instructed to wear the garment until my follow-up the next day and not remove it or shower. I was dying of curiosity to know what was going on under cover. My belly looked like I had been attacked by a horde on angry bees, with more than twenty pokes and jabs to mark the areas where small amounts of fat had been taken. It was a great source of amusement for both me and my husband.
The next day was the unveiling. My breast was still swollen, and it appeared the surgeon had over-stuffed the area. He did this, he said, to counter-balance a certain amount of fat cells dying in the grafting procedure.
He also told me he had been able to release all of the stitches holding the pucker in place, instead of partially releasing them as he first thought he would do. This meant, if enough of the fat grafting took as expected, I would not be having a second or third procedure!
With the passing of the days and the first few weeks, it became apparent to me that my initial-- one and done — fat grafting procedure had been a success. The excess swelling receded just as the surgeon hoped it would. Enough of the grafted fat survived to leave my breast smooth and contoured to near perfection to match her sister. The only sign of my previous encounter with breast cancer is a faint, small line of a scar that would be barely discernible to any eye not trained to look for it. Hell, I have curling iron scars that have looked worse than my breast cancer scar.
It’s been nearly four years since my breast cancer was first diagnosed, nearly three years since I chose fat grafting to restore what that disturbing disease stole from me physically. My body is restored. My mind? Well, maybe not so much. Breast cancer is, and always has been, a scourge of a disease that scars a woman’s heart and soul as much as it does her body. I chose fat grafting, not only because I wanted the body I have always seen when I looked in the mirror — although I must admit it is reassuring to still have that view of myself.
No, I chose fat grafting because it was a proactive way for me to fight back against the breast cancer that stole my peace of mind and my (irrational and unfounded) belief that I would live, unscathed by life, for one hundred years. Doctors and surgeons made the decisions as to what I had to do to deal with this disease — but I made the decision as to how I chose to recover from it.
RECENT STORIES