I had a mastectomy & immediate reconstruction last week.
The plastic surgeon said beforehand that he thought he could put the permanent implant straight in without needing an expander as I am quite small breasted. But, it turned out he put in an expander because he didn't have an implant small enough!
I feel quite upset & betrayed by this. While there had been the possibility of needing an expander it had been for almost the opposite reason - if there wasn't enough skin to allow the implant to fit initially. The possiblity of the implant being too big was not mentioned. I let them put me to sleep with a certain understanding of what was to happen & they did something different.
I now will need to have a second operation which means I have to go through the whole recovery process only to get cut open again & have to recover again.
This last operation was supposed to be the last big cancer thing & then I could recover and move on. I don't want to have to do it again.
Apparently lots of women having a mastecomy & reconstruction on one side also have the other side enlarged at the same time which makes it easier to match them. But surely I can't be the only one with such small breasts who didn't want to go any bigger?
