It is time...surgery is here

Well, I thought I would be asleep by now, but alas I am still awake. I suppose I can catch up on my sleep during the surgery. Since it is after midnight now, I am having surgery today, Feb. 2.

I just wanted to thank you once again for praying for me during the surgery today and through the recovery journey. I check in at 10:45AM and the surgery will begin at 1:00PM. It should last around 5 1/2 hours. I had a great day today. Spent most of it with my sister, which was very sweet. Now that everything is done and it is quiet I am feeling a little nervous so I have just put on my new favorite worship CD that I have been using lately in my personal time with the Lord as well as during ministry. It is called, "Take Me Away" by Grace Williams. (I downloaded it from iTunes.) It has a beautiful anointing for healing and miracles. I know I just need to keep focused on my Jesus. I always do well as long as I keep my focus on His beautiful face. It is when I start looking at circumstances that fear finds a place in me. Like Peter walking on the water, I just can't look around at the waves. Jesus is my Love and my peace.

My daughter, Karyn, has graciously agreed to update my blog for me daily while I am in the hospital. She will update it as soon as I am out of recovery from the surgery so please check back here for updates and prayer requests.

Already I feel His peace filling me and I am grateful. It has gotten late so I had better close and sleep. I wish I had words to convey my gratitude for you! I will trust the Lord to communicate it to you for me.

With a thankful heart, Leslyn

All work and no play...

One more thought: I realized getting ready for major surgery is like doing all of the work that it takes to go out of town for a long vacation, but without the fun vacation part! That sort of sucks...oh well.

Hospital pre-op down, just the surgery to go...

I went in for my hospital pre-op yesterday. It went well. I found out that I am scheduled for 51/2 hours of surgery. It is an hour longer than I was expecting. I am hoping that is cushion in case it goes long. They took some blood so they could get my blood type just in case I need a transfusion. I am praying and trusting that I will not. They told me that any surgery over 4 hours requires the availability of blood...just in case. They also did an EKG, which looked perfect. So I am good to go.

My surgeon is pre-medicating me with anti-nausea medicine. I would really appreciate your prayer that I don't feel nauseated or vomit when I come out of the surgery or from the pain medication that they give me. I have had a very difficult time with that in the past. It is terribly painful to throw up right after surgery...trust me!

I am feeling much better. As I mentioned, I had been fighting some fear about the surgery, the pain and being down again just when I am finally feeling great. I know many of you have been praying. I woke up this morning and felt so much better. The fear was gone and a heaviness that I have been feeling had lifted. God is so faithful and prayer is so very effective!

I am heading to bed. I am trying to excercise and get lots of sleep heading into surgery. Please pray that I will stay healthy and strong. Thank you!!

Met with the plastic surgeon

I had my pre-op appointment with my plastic surgeon yesterday. It went very well. I so appreciate Dr. Ghorbani, he is very steady, peaceful and confident. Good traits for a surgeon.

He assured me that he is confident that I need to go through with this surgery. That was helpful to hear again. It will be nice to have soft and movable skin and muscle on my chest area again. It feels like scrunched up, very tight cement at the moment.

Thank you for your prayers and encouraging words regarding my fight with fear. I am beginning to feel a bit better about it all. There is a part of me that is beginning to feel excited about what the Lord has for me in my relationship with Him during these upcoming days of quietness and rest. He is so kind to walk with us and even carry us through difficult times and suffering. A friend reminded me that Jesus knows exactly how I feel. He too had his chest torn open and He carries the scars with Him still. He has identified with me even in this. Amazing.

So this next section may be too much information for some, so you may want to close this now. For those who are going through reconstruction too, this may be helpful. For those who want to pray specifically, this is for you.

The doctor is going to cut out the capsule of scar tissue that has formed around the expander. He says that will loosen up my chest wall muscles and the skin over my "breast" area. (I say "breast" area because I had a bi-lateral mastectomy and because what I have there now has very little in common with a breast.) He will also take out the radiation damaged muscle tissue and skin on the left side. (We will do the right side sometime in May or June.)

The doctor will then bring a donor portion of muscle and skin around from my back using the Latismis Dorsi muscle. I will have a drain back there for about two weeks. It will leave about a 5 inch scar. The doc is hoping that if my skin relaxes enough, he may be able to use extra skin from my back to create a nipple and colorless areola. He will have to wait and see, and so will I. If he can't, that will be another surgery that will have to be done at some time in the future. I must say, reconstruction is a much more lengthy process than I had expected. He will attach the vessels and nerves in the patch so that it gets proper blood supply. This is a very important part of the procedure as I have had trouble with poor blood supply to the breast area in my previous surgery and with radiation. I will have a drain in the front for a week or so. Dr. Kerlin will also be assisting during the surgery. They are two of the finest surgeons in the Northern California. She will be taking my VAP (port) out, which will be a huge milestone for me.

I have heard that the first 12 hours or so are the most painful. I also have had trouble with nausea and vomiting after coming out of surgery so prayer for that would be GREATLY appreciated. Throwing up with large incisions is a horrific experience.

Please pray against any infection as well. I am only able to take three antibiotics, I am allergic to the rest so I really need divine protection while in the hospital and during recovery. Thank you so much.

Please continue to pray for peace for our whole family. Both of my girls are in school during my surgery. I know that will be hard on them. Karyn is in So Cal and won't be able to come up as school starts up again next week. It is hard to be away from home when this type of thing is happening. Also, I have a cough that is hanging on from bronchitis that I had earlier this month. Please pray it leaves completely. Coughing and surgery are not a good match!
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers! I am extremely grateful!

By the way, my hospital pre-op is tomorrow.

I will be in the hospital

Processing...

I rarely feel fear, I often joke that I wasn't born with a fear chip. Apparently, I have one. I was very resolute when it came to my double mastectomy surgery. I was very at peace and knew that I was making the right decision. As I look back from this vantage point, I think most of that was of course the Lord's grace and part of it was that I knew I had to do it to save my life.

This surgery is a whole different kettle of fish. Part of the decision to have the surgery is cosmetic and part of the decision is to alleviate the pain that the radiation damage is causing. It is elective not life saving. Somehow, for me emotionally, I am having a harder time preparing for this surgery. For the past couple of days I have been fighting fear and very consciously having to keep my thoughts on a very short leash so that I don't start thinking about the "What-ifs" that are so unhelpful to staying in a place of peace.

I have my pre-op appointment tomorrow. I will ask the doctor one more time if he thinks this extensive repair and rebuilding is really necessary. I need to hear it for my own peace of mind. The pain from the radiation damage has increased over the past couple of weeks, so I do know that I have to do something. In some ways, the pain is helping me to make the decision to move forward. For me it is very much about moving forward. Sometimes that is all we can do. Just keep going.

I believe that I am entering a season of rebuilding, in this case a very thorough rebuilding. Rather than look at my time of recovery as being isolated, thanks to Linda and Prudy, I am looking at it as a time of being set apart to the Lord. I believe He has some things to speak to me and show me. That part I am actually looking forward to now.

Would you please be praying for me as I process through preparing for this upcoming surgery. Would you also please join me in standing against a spirit of fear? I know that God has not given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of power, of love and of a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7). I am a "pre-processor", I process things before they happen and then by the time I get to the event, I am good to go. This is my time to process all of the things that I am feeling and to pray through to a place of peace. Thank you for joining me in prayer, I appreciate it and need your prayers.

Surgery was cancelled in November...good thing!

So I was supposed to have surgery in November to replace my expanders with permanent implants. I finally decided to go with saline implants. I travel enough to remote areas of the world that it seemed having silicone implants that require immediate surgery if they leak would not be a good idea if I was out in a jungle. Saline implants, if they were to leak, would end up just deflating, but my body could absorb the water without harm. I could then wait until I got back home to have surgery. That seemed to make sense to me.

I had to cancel the surgery because my youngest daughter was in the hospital. I needed to be well enough to care for her both at the hospital and once she got home. She is well now.

It turns out that it was a very good thing I didn't have surgery. The scar tissue is building up very intensely in the area of my chest where they did the radiation treatment. The area is becoming like cement, very hard and encapsulating the expanders. It is pressing the expander, especially on the left side, tightly against my chest wall and misshaping it. It feels like someone has wrapped a very, very tight bandage around my chest. It is pulling the muscles in my back and is very uncomfortable.

I have spoken to two surgeons, they both agree that I need to have a more significant surgery done to repair the damage from radiation. The plan is to remove the skin and muscle on the left side over the expander and replace it with donor skin and muscle taken from my back. They will take a portion of my latissimus dorsi muscle and the skin and move it around to the front and replace the damaged tissue. It will leave a 5 inch scar on my back but should free up the tightness and pain in my "breast" area. While they are in there, they will replace the expander with a saline implant.

The surgery will take about 41/2 hours with two surgeons working in concert. I will be in the hospital for a few days. I will have a drain in the front for about a week and a drain in the back for about two weeks. It will be a few more weeks after the drains are removed to recover.

In about three months after that surgery, they will do the same thing on the right side. It is pretty major surgery. If I had the original surgery in November, they still would have had to do this one, so the decision to cancel the previous surgery saved me a needless one.

Surgery is planned for February 2.

Been awhile since I've written

I have been pondering why it has been so long since I have written on my blog. Two things have come to mind. The first and most obvious reason is that I was able to return to work in November. It has taken most of my time and energy just to keep up with working and getting back into life at a more normal pace. I love that I can work again, but it has taken all of my energy and effort over the past couple of months. I haven't had much time or energy for anything else. When they say that it takes a full year after 6 months of chemo followed by radiation to regain "normal" energy, they mean it.

The less obvious reason is denial. I think once I was able to return to work, I just sort of wanted to forget about cancer and what I've been through for awhile, so writing about it didn't fit into that subliminal agenda. So I just didn't write. I think it was a good and needed break emotionally and mentally. It has been a long couple of years.

I am back now and hope that some of you are still checking in on my blog.