Surgery...

This is what we've been waiting for, a surgery date, well, it's only a penciled in tentative surgery date. November 21st, yep that's right 5 1/2 weeks from now. Wow that seems like a long time from now! Actually, as I mentioned, this is tentative. I mean, this is the date but we are hoping to move it up to be much sooner. Sharlee, bless her heart, has been working on my surgery date all week. Of course, Dr. Nate can do it as soon as we have a Plastic Surgeon but it's the Plastic Surgeon that we are waiting on. I had no idea that there are not many Plastic Surgeons that do reconstruction. I thought it was something that all Plastic Surgeons did. WRONG! So, Sharlee has calls out to 3 other Plastic Surgeons to see if they can do it sooner. Now, we obviously don't want just any Plastic Surgeon because I never planned on having a boob job but now that I don't have a choice, I want them to look good!! Anyway, I have been anticipating this appointment since the beginning. All we have been waiting for is a date when everything is supposed to get started. We now have a date. However, when I went to see Dr. Bhatia yesterday and Sharlee told us we had a date, my heart skipped a beat because this is what we have been waiting for. When November 21st came out I think my eyes got big because Dr. Bhatia chimed in real quick and said "this is tentative, I have told Sharlee to threaten these surgeons because I want this moved up." Ryan of course asked what I was thinking, is it ok to wait that much longer and let this thing keep growing? Dr. Bhatia's answer was, yes. He explained that he feels mostly comfortable waiting because he doesn't feel in any way my health or of course my chance for survival will be compromised. Ryan also asked if we should go ahead and do chemo prior to surgery since we have to wait. He said he really didn't think it was necessary to start it but he wanted to consult 2 other physicians regarding this, one being from IU Medical and the other being from MD Anderson. Not that he isn't sure of himself, he just said that he would like to consult these other physicians because I am so young and we have to wait so much longer than we expected. He said that if they tell him something different than what he told us, he would let us know. Also, Sharlee asked if I was willing to take the first date a Plastic Surgeon can give us and of course my answer was yes. She assured me that she has seen these other surgeons work and she would not have me see someone that would not do a nice job. I have to say that I never thought I would be sitting in a Dr.s office talking about boobs!! There were 2 other questions hanging in the balance. The first being, I know that there is a 30% chance that I won't have to do chemo, and we know that the 70% chance of having chemo are much higher but I was curious how this normally plays out. Sharlee said that she understands that I have this small "chance" but she also said that she knows Dr. Bhatia and she can almost guarantee I will have to have chemo. This is fine though because I already had it in my mind that I was going to have to from the beginning. Also, since more than likely I will be having chemo, can I harvest my eggs? I know that we can't even think about having kids for 5 years after treatment is completed but I want to have the option if we choose. She said that this is something we can do all the way up until surgery so she is going to set us up with a Fertility Specialist. With all of this being said, I am happy to see that we have answers and a plan, well, mostly a plan. It's nice to see that there will soon be a beginning to this which is one step closer to the end of all of this!! So ready to get this started so I can kick it's butt!! Always remember ladies to CHECK YOUR BUMPS FOR LUMPS!!