Charlotte Breast Reconstruction Video Testimonial
I’m Cara and I’m 48 years old. I have two boys, 15 and 18. I do financial planning and I’ve been doing that for the majority of my adult life, twenty some odd years. I had breast reconstruction I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I elected to do the latissimus flap reconstruction where they take your latissimus muscle off your back and use it on the front, and augmented the other side to where they would match.
It was a series of several surgeries to get me to where I am today, so my last surgery was I guess July of last year. So now pretty much I can wear anything I’d like to wear and cancer free which is a wonderful thing and so moving on with life as you’d hoped it to be.Actually I had interviewed with a couple of other doctors prior to and I had known Dr. Ditesheim before in a professional role, and I didn’t know if it would be awkward since I worked with him professionally to have him as a doctor, especially when you’re doing breast reconstruction, would that be too odd. And so then I went to a couple other doctors prior to fessing up to Dr. Ditesheim that I was facing this, and looked at their pictures and dealt with their bedside manner and stuff like that. I mean I knew that Dr. Ditesheim was gonna be the better call after I’d met with all these other folks, and so I chatted with my husband about it and we came out and met with him and we both walked out saying yup that’s the right choice. It’s been great, I mean the staff is good, of course Dr. Ditesheim is great. Of course he spends the time with you to explain what the options are. I mean I was originally just gonna do no latissimus flap thing and so they talked about the difference in the results of how it would look in the long run versus the short run, because of course there’s longer recovery using your latissimus flap because you’re taking a muscle off your back. It does take a while to adjust to that. But in the long run they do have a better shape and look about what I have, and in my clothes. And even my husband, later on, of course he’s the one that sees me, and he was saying, ah this was about two months, everything seems to be in the right shape and even the scar on my back where they took my latissimus muscle, I don’t think it would bother anybody if you wore something that actually showed the scar because it’s such a huge scar and it’s blended into my skin and all that. I mean before I was thinking, oh nothing backless. I don’t think I would think that anymore because it’s not an obnoxious scar, it was very smooth. And he’s very good at holding your hand through a decision that you’re trying to make that will change how you look and how you feel about yourself.
Well the actual surgery, all four surgeries were in the hospital, so it’s a little bit different. But on the day of I mean I showed up and you know you’re nervous, as you can imagine, and Dr. Ditesheim comes in, draws all over you so you can watch the artist at work at that particular point because you’ve got the markers all over you and the different things of what he’s doing and kind of watching his mind work, just a different form of canvas I think. And then of course I’m out during all of that but he was very communicative after the surgery with my husband, and my mother was there. And then the folks in the recovery were great, and of course Deborah here in the office is wonderful. So if you have questions on what’s going on and why then you can easily do that. Although actually she called me before I had the guts to pick up the phone and call her and ask the questions which was great.
Jan and Deborah, you couldn’t ask for better folks I don’t think. Deborah was not here at the first couple of my surgeries, and the other folks were good, but I can tell Deborah she just really loves dealing with the patients and making sure that everybody’s comfortable and that the healing’s going like it’s supposed to do and alleviating your fears and all, and of course Jan is just very good at the coordination. They’re just, they’re caring folks and it comes through in the way that they deal with you.
I know one of the decisions that was facing me when I had to decide which doctor to use was what did my insurance do. And I will say that there are those that if your insurance company doesn’t cover what you’re trying to get done that you can go out of network. And just like if you needed the right cardiologist and it was out of network, I mean if you needed to have reconstruction from breast cancer or whatever going to get the right results is as important as whether it’s in network or out of network. So I would stress going to where you’re gonna get what you want, what body you want to live with the rest of your life, as opposed to whether or not it’s in network or out of network.
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