Post 10: The Big Meeting
A couple of weeks ago, we met with the consultant surgeon in Birmingham.
We were in a regular doctor’s consultation room, but there were a few more of us packed in there than normal; there was:
- the consultant surgeon
- the Macmillan nurse
- two plastic surgeons
- my wife (Claire)
- …and me!
The consultant surgeon was looking-over the MRI and CT scans that I had done that morning, and working out the plan for my surgery whilst describing it to the plastics team.
It’s becoming very normal for me to take my t-shirt off and show pretty-much anyone that needs to see it. So, I’m stood there, topless, whilst he’s pushing and poking the lump on my chest and working out where to cut, what to rip out and how small/big a hole in my chest there needs to be.
Spoiler - the skin over the entire lump is all coming out. Right down to my ribs.
To start with, the area around the biopsy hole needs to come out; they need to be sure that nothing was left in the opening when the 6x apple-cores were taken, so the solution is to carve that bit out.
Where that bit is coming out, there’s not enough ‘spare skin’ on my upper chest to pinch-it and stitch it together, so I need some ‘donor skin’ to backfill the gap.
They’re going to hive-off however-much skin they need to fill the hole in my chest, taken from my back. There, they think they can pinch n’ stitch to close-up the open wound, so it should be ok.
But then, the skin on my chest has been blasted by weeks of radiation, so the idea then is that the borrowed skin won’t bond and heal as well to the damaged skin.
So, to fix that, they’re going bigger and chopping it all out. A 3cm ‘margin’ around the lump, to be exact.
Good skin from my back will be stitched to good skin on my chest. Only problem is the vast amount that they’re ripping out. Ouch.
Also, when I say ‘skin’, you know I actually mean muscles and blood supply, too, right? No, I didn’t realise that either, so this is going to be fun. But it does explain why I need to be in hospital for 2 to 3 weeks.
Whilst I am totally bricking it, I’m genuinely amazed and impressed at what they’re able to do. This is all fascinating to me.
#cancer #skingraft #cancersurgery