Ah yes, the day I said goodbye to my tatas. What a day. My memory is still extremely vivid and full of details, so I figure why not let everyone in on what happened that day, and what the deal is now.
I’ve never had surgery before, so I was a little anxious about going under anaesthetic, and also about waking up with a permanently altered body… makes sense.
On the day of surgery I arrived at the hospital around 6am, with my husband, and was ready to just do what I had to do and go with the flow. One step at a time, they prepared me. I had to have a lymph node biopsied at the same time so I stopped in nuclear medicine first to be injected with two solutions in order to help them find the right lymph node – I was told it would be removed if it looked suspicious. But that’s all I was really told. Then I had my IV put in, and I waited around for a couple of hours until it was my turn.
I was visited by my plastic surgeon Dr. Omodele Ayani ahead of time. It felt pretty casual, cracking jokes as usual… And once it was my time someone led me to the operating room and I walked in and sat up on the table. I had two main surgeons – the general surgeon was responsible for the bilateral mastectomy (double mastectomy) and removing the cancer, and my plastic surgeon was responsible for the reconstruction process.
My plastic surgeon walked in to mark my body before surgery got under way, and I noticed he had a portable music speaker in his bag. Tunes, obviously. I was into it, but then I became instantly alarmed when he told me he’d be listening to John Legend’s Christmas album! Whoa whoa whoa. What. I told him that top 40 music was what I’d listen to… but hey I’m not the one with the sharp objects. The person with the sharp objects gets to choose the playlist. Check.
He started to mark my body for incisions as I sat on the table, so I took the opportunity to make a joke about how my boobs looked before kids – and after kids.
It was obviously the appropriate thing to do.
Hey look, before kids *lift them up*
After kids *let them drop*
Before kids *lift them up*
After kids *let them drop*
That happened. I did that.
Friendly banter back and forth ensued… Fun with my tatas right until the very end!
So, now it was time to lay back and get the show on the road. Doctors and nurses were bustling around me getting ready. I was told it would be about a three hour surgery and that everything was going to be ok. Just as they were getting ready to put me under anaesthesia, I could hear my plastic surgeon ask ‘Hey who changed the music?!” because all of a sudden it was playing some typical top 40 hit. “Lindsy, did you put them up to this?!”. The mask was already on my mouth but I laughed, and denied it… although I’m sure no one could actually understand me. Then another doctor said he was the one who changed it. It was a pretty solid way for me to go under, because literally 3 seconds later, I was out.
I’ll never know exactly how much Christmas music was played, and that my friends, will haunt me until the end of time.
