AJ's Cancer Journey & Chronic Illness: Only 3 days to DIEP Reconstruction!

Sorry I've not blogged in a while but I've been struggling with pain, depression and anxiety. Thought I'd do a quick blog to update you all. My Reconstruction surgery had been bought forward and is only 3 days away! I'm so looking forward to it and can't wait, my body is such a mess and I'm in so much pain with my skin stuck to my chestbone, just to have a bit of fatty tissue put between them would be heaven. But my tummy is big enough and I'll hopefully get a nice little pair of boobs.

My surgery is called a DIEP flap procedure. In a DIEP flap, fat, skin, and blood vessels are cut from the wall of the lower belly and moved up to your chest to rebuild your breast. Your surgeon carefully reattaches the blood vessels of the flap to blood vessels in your chest using microsurgery.

I will have two surgeons working on me together to shorten the length of the long surgery down. But could still be anything between 6-10 hours and a recovery period of 8-10 weeks. I'll be in hospital for about 5 days, or until I can walk the stairs unaided. I will have 4 drains again, 2 in the chest and 2 in the abdomen area.

I'm all packed and ready to go into hospital, just want it over with now. I made my friends laugh yesterday, I said I'm looking forward to the lovely curries in hospital and the sponge puddings haha!

On another note my eyebrows never fully grew back so I've had them microbladed by Shannon at Ruby Rose in Stamford. It's a semi permanent tattoo, they can last anything between 1-3 years. I love them, they've made me feel so much better, especially as I'm too lazy for makeup!

I'll blog again after surgery, wish me luck. X