How do you know when you have complete trust in your breast reconstruction surgeon? I can share my experience, but I am not you. My breast cancer experience was unique to my circumstances. It was my second occurrence of breast cancer. I had a double mastectomy and for seven long months lived without my breasts. Then I had what is known as delayed DIEP flap breast reconstruction.
I honestly felt like a mangled mess the day I first saw my plastic reconstructive surgeon for my initial consult. I had skin sparing, nipple sparing mastectomy. Looking down at the folds of skin laying on my now breast-less chest wall always made me towel off quickly after each shower to put something over the area left marred by breast cancer. Each side of my chest looked different since I had radiation twelve years previous on my left side only. Scarring, tightness, and just being able to feel the boniness of my sternum made me feel sad.
Living without my breasts and wearing a heavy silicon prosthesis for during the hot summer months depleted my self-esteem. The day I sat in my breast reconstruction surgeon’s office to meet him for the first time was a day I’ll never forget, ever. My hands were clammy. I was clean as a whistle but the nervous feeling of meeting him for the first time made my armpits wet with anxiousness making me feel like I needed another shower to smell fresh. It was important to me to appear to be as feminine as I possibly could to convey the message to this man, I wanted to feel whole again. Trust was something that I gained in the one-hour consult, complete trust. So how did that happen?
Compassion Builds Trust in your Breast Reconstruction Surgeon
Straight out of the blocks, there was no sense this was going to be a rushed consult. Dr. Chrysopoulo sauntered into the room and greeted us warmly. You know how some doctors come rushing into a consult as if they are breathless, hurried, and have to get though an appointment to get on to the next patient? This man gave us the impression he had no where else to go that day and we were all his.
Conviction Builds Trust in your Breast Reconstruction Surgeon
Answering each of our questions with detail and watching our response to see if we understood the answer, he was building our trust. We asked some tough questions. What happens if you open me up and there are no good perforators? His answer convinced us he could locate one that would work, even if it meant he had to find one elsewhere. He even shared a story about a time he had to do that during a long day in the OR.
Shoring up my confidence by telling me he was going to hide my scars well so I could get back into those feminine clothes I so missed wearing while I had no breasts built my trust in this man.
Listening Builds Trust in your Breast Reconstruction Surgeon
When you spend a full hour with your plastic surgeon engaged in this decision-making process you build trust. He tells you what he can do to make you look as close to what you looked like before you lost your breasts. You ask questions about his skill level, failure rate, if any patients had a recurrence of breast cancer after DIEP flap, who else will be assisting him in surgery. We had a lot of questions he listened to and answered. He was building our trust.
You Feel the Relationship Begin to Build
By the time our consult with Dr. C was wrapping up, my husband and I felt like we had established a true relationship of trust. So much so the conversation turned personal, funny, gregarious, and light-hearted as the last few minutes of our consult was winding down. Our expectations and what we anticipated feeling during this hour-long consult were sealed with a sense of trust and certainty that my life was about to change for the better. I have walked out of other physicians’ offices and not felt the way I did when I walked out of my consult for my DIEP flap breast reconstruction.
Trust in your Breast Surgeon Begins with A Shared Decision-Making Consult
I speak often about the term, shared decision making. Even though my experience was unique to my situation, my diagnosis, my treatment, I want everyone to have a shared decision-making consult like I did. I often tell women to have a second opinion if they don’t feel the sense of trust in their breast reconstruction surgeon.
You should leave the initial consult feeling like I did. You should be able to say, like I did, I trust this breast reconstruction surgeon to have me on the table in the OR, open my body, dissect tissue, and reconnect it to make a new body part, my breasts, that were lost to breast cancer.
Dr. C, thank you for building my trust in you. Thank you for your compassion, conviction, listening and allowing our shared decision-making experience in breast reconstruction to rebuild my life.