Surgery day... today

It's 2.41am and it is surgery day for me. Have to be at the hospital at 6.30am and for some reason I can't sleep ;-) After my lumpectomy back last December and chemo I discovered that my adolescent history of multiple diagnostic x-rays put me at high risk of getting cancer in the first place and even after chemo and herceptin I am still at higher risk than normal of more cancer. So today is a bilateral skin sparing mastectomy (BMX)with immediate muscle sparing free TRAM reconstruction (moving my stomach to my chest). It's a 10 hour surgery with 2 surgeons. The breast surgeon goes first for the BMX which should take 3 hours. Then the plastic surgeon steps in and does the recon which takes about 7 hours. Am told about 7nts in the hospital (public, going in as private patient...) but it could be more. Have full access to the "pain team" I'm also told. Was some drama over the past couple of days as my breast surgeon has ended up in hospital herself. Now her resident will do the BMX with her supervising. This is what would happen if I was going public so there is now no gap for that part of the surgery. The $8000 gap for the plastic surgeon still stands as does the anaesthetist $4000 gap of course. I know implicitly that this is the right thing - just nervous about the pain and recovery. Made sure to take some before photos for hubby (and me). May come in useful when I get the nipple recon next year so the tatooist can match my original nipple colour :-) See you on the other side! And have a great time at conference. Even though I am right here in Sydney I didn't book due to this surgery... Jennt28