One of the things that seems to make my friends the most squeamish and/or doubtful about top surgery is their idea that it’s a large-scale procedure with an intensely debilitating recovery period. They worry – quite understandably – about my ability to go back to work, to cook, to write my dissertation, to do all the things I love. So while it feels like SERIOUSLY tempting fate, I think what I want to do today is to set out some sense of my expectations around top surgery and the recovery process, based on the research I’ve done and the people I’ve spoken to. I guess it will be a fun post to see how these expectations match up with reality!

I get to the surgery at 6:30 in the morning on December 5^th. I’ll have been nil-by-mouth since midnight the night before, and I will probably be tired, cranky, and very sad that I’m not able to have a coffee. That’s ok, large doses of drugs will soon make me feel much better about this.

I’m in the operating room for two hours. They’ll cut a little doughnut out of each chest, extract a bunch of tissue, and sew what was the inside of the doughnut to the outside, drawing in the excess skin like a purse (it’s also called a purse-string mastectomy). They’ll try very hard to make sure the nipple remains attached to its respective nerve endings, but the most common side effect of the procedure is that there is some damage there. The whole procedure takes about two hours.

I spend one hour in the recovery room – probably burbling and being very happy about life, the universe, and large doses of chemicals. I’ll have a surgical drain attached to each armpit, and the nurse will come and show me how to strip, empty and change those. I will understand none of the instructions because I’ll be so drugged up, but that’s ok because my trusty friend C is coming with me and has promised to get all that information for me. If all goes well I’m allowed to leave after about an hour, so long as I promise to stay the night in the area with adult supervision in case I get stuck or unexpectedly start bleeding. This short amount of time is what surprises most people, but as a doctor friend recently explained: it’s outside the muscle wall, it doesn’t involve and lymph nodes, it’s not really a big deal. Right.

I spend the day in an air bnb being very, very sore, watching Netflix, and trying not to touch ANYTHING.

I go home on December 6^th, hopefully with no surprise bleeding or trips to the clinic. I continue to be very sore, to change my drains frequently, and to be pretty much a back turtle for a day or so. My friends come in from out of state to continue the very important business of watching Netflix and making sure I put food in my face. I try very hard to go to the toilet, since the drugs from before will have made me not want to do this at all. I start walking around on day 2, but I’m not allowed to shower so I quickly feel gross and uncomfortable, compounded by the fact that I’m a fetal sleeper suddenly restricted to their back. Gross, but I’m sure I’ll work something out. Maybe some kind of pillow cage. My cat is DELIGHTED with everything and spends large chunks of time curled up next to me purring.

On December 11^th I go back to the surgery to have my drains out. By this time I’m pretty mobile, but still not allowed to lift anything heavier than a potato (slight exaggeration there). I can finally take off the compression vest I’ve been wearing since surgery, they peel the surgical foam back and I feel… I don’t know what I’ll feel in that moment. I’ll tell you later. The vest goes back on, suitably padded since it will now be too big for me, and off I trot back home again. I have the best and most wonderful shower of my life. From here on I’m guided by what my body tells me hurts: probably my arms will be fit for concert dance by the time the semester starts up again in January, but it will be a good while longer before I can take my own body-weight again.

So there it is – that’s how I think the surgery and its immediate aftermath will go based on the people I’ve talked to and what I can find on the internet. Hopefully with this blog I’ll add to the pool of resources out there for people who are also going into this a little blind, and the people who care about them.