Mastectomy

Today is surgery #3, an areola-sparing mastectomy or ASM (pubmed entry here). Not to be confused with a nipple-sparing mastectomy, an ASM takes the central part of the nipple where the milk ducts are but leaves the colored skin that is the outer areola. The breast tissue beneath is completely removed but no other skin is taken. Many surgeons will want to re-excise any previous scars (e.g. lumpectomy) too. This will leave me with a scar or two but hopefully a near-normal looking breast and nipple.

We had our plastic surgeon put in a tissue expander put in at the same time and slightly filled to give me some shape.

Joseph Hartigan was our surgeon and Paul Scioscia was our plastic surgeon, both did excellent work.

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Mastectomy Types
Incision for modified radical mastectomy	Scar following surgery
Incisions for skin sparing mastectomy.	Scar following surgery.
Incisions for areolar sparing mastectomy.	Scar following surgery.
Incision for nipple-sparing (subcutaneous) mastectomy.

MRI Day

Today was a pain. We spent an hour waiting for an MRI and then 45 minutes sitting perfectly still while they did an MRI of both breasts, both with and without contrast. We're looking for any reason to do a mastectomy on the left breast too. The results take 10 days but there's nothing showing on the left side. The bill for the MRI is nearly $5,000.00.

Meet the new surgeon

Today we met our new surgeon, Dr. Hartigan. It turns out he's not so new, I had a cyst removed by his partner a few years back. He says we're good candidates for an areola-sparing mastectomy (ASM). He also says that most Europeans don't do mastectomies like we do here, they almost always leave the nipple or the areola. We're also happy that he and our plastic surgeon will be able to work together in the same operation. He says we need an MRI bad to check the other breast for cancer, we agree and couldn't believe our old surgeon didn't want one.