As for meeting with my gynecologist (Dr. Eleanor Oakman with Roper St. Francis) in early August, she initially scheduled my salpingo-oophorectomy (ovary and tube removal) for 2023, seeing as I’d be going through a lot during this time with the multiple breast surgeries alone. But I remember calling her back a week later and saying let’s do it sooner. I wanted to have all of this behind me before the new year.
To decrease my risk of ovarian cancer, she initially suggested a hysterectomy, but then changed it to just ovaries and tubes since I’d already had a uterine ablation the year before.
Crazy that this was only an hour after I got out of surgery, picking up my meds at CVS. I didn’t drive, but Lanier was coming down with the flu so I couldn’t let him walk in and expose anyone.
Getting home the day of surgery. Gauze covering the stitches from the three laparoscopy entrance points.
Sorry if this grosses y’all out, but wanted to show them the next day after taking off the gauze.
This was five days post-op and everything healed so well! I was pretty much back to myself about three days post-surgery.
Opposite of resting post-op my double mastectomy, with the salpingo-oophorectomy, they encouraged movement to help with the bloating. This was one week post-op. You can see the difference in my boob size here too. But not too noticeable.
Ideally, I would’ve loved to have had both the double mastectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy performed at the same time, but my gynecologist didn’t recommend it for risk of infection. And with the encouragement of moving after this surgery, it would’ve been hard to do that since I had to rest after my double mastectomy.
For More: My BRCA Story // My BRCA Surgeries: Part One // My BRCA Surgeries: Part Three
Ashley thank you for sharing your story I so wish after mama passed with breast cancer I had done the genetic testing then I would have saved myself a lot sooner and thanks to your mom for encouraging me to get genetic testing done even though by then I’d already had my ovaries removed and a DMX! I did choose the flat route instructions of reconstruction! Thank you for your story and I hope it encourages many others