Page 237 - She's One Crazy Lady!

six hours. It was so, so humbling to stand alongside both surgeons watching their skilled hands carefully cut away at Jen – opening up her breast area, through her mastectomy scar, cutting her from hip to hip and above to find the flap in the belly region that would be used to make her new breast and nurses and others doing what they had to do – passing over the surgical items and swabbing as and when needed. Mr Varma joked they were all on their best behaviour because I was there! I didn’t believe him.
Cutting through several layers of membranes Chris showed me how they took a piece of the rib away to locate the vein and artery which needed to be attached to the vein and artery that Mr Varma had found down below – so much precision! I could also see Jen’s beating heart through the membranes. I was totally absorbed – loving it. Mr Varma had planned on doing the DIEP flap, like mine, but showed me that her blood vessels were not wide enough to take the necessary blood flow so decided to do the TRAM procedure which meant cutting away a little bit more and taking a piece of her muscle to mould the new breast. By going in a little further I was able to see her ‘sixpack!’ The mound of flesh, which seemed huge, was lifted up to her breast and that’s when the Theatre went quiet and microsurgery was performed – Mr Varma securely linking up artery to artery and vein to vein using very technical microscopic equipment, TV cameras and screens. Because Jen was having the TRAM procedure a piece of mesh was cut and shaped to the exact size and shape of the muscle taken out and sewn on to ensure she didn’t develop a hernia – this entailed dozens of stitches. I believe a little more anaesthetic was given to her at this point as Mr Varma explained that Jen had to be totally paralysed as they didn’t want her tummy to go into any kind of spasm. The anaesthetist invited me over to his working space and showed me what all the numbers meant and assured me she was doing well.
Mr Varma explained that they had a two hour window in which to perform the linking up of veins and arteries so I could watch this live by looking at one of the screens. It was the first time I was able to sit down and found myself sitting next to a large steel bowl full of used (and counted) swabs, blood and saline – if I was going to pass out it would have been then but I was still OK – in awe of what was happening, knowing I had to remember ‘everything’ for we had agreed I would write up the whole account.
An hour later everyone breathed a sigh of relief – the veins had been successfully coupled and Jen’s blood was flowing well – the flap turning a healthy pink. A further thirty minutes before any more interventions to make sure there were no complications.
With everything connected the next big task was to put Jen back together again and to shape her new breast. Chris took charge of this and began to trim aways edges of the large flap, that had been ‘flopped’ on to her breast, discarding pieces that were surplus to requirement. Looking carefully I thought I had seen her nipple that had
“...so much precision!
I could also see Jen’s beating heart through the membranes. I was totally absorbed – loving it.
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