Wait, what’s an Expander?

After 4 weeks and 2 surgeries, my draining tubes were taken out today and I feel like I have a new lease on life! 

We are now on to expanding expanders.

I had expander placement surgery on August 15th, just two weeks after my bilateral mastectomy (8/1). Reminder, I had a skin sparring mastectomy in which they removed all of the fat and breast tissue, including areas under the arm pit and lower chest, leaving my breast skin and a concave pocket where all that tissue/fat used to be. The expander device is placed in a separate procedure (or sometimes during the mastectomy) and is used to keep the breast pocket and maintain the pliability of the skin during radiation and the months leading to reconstruction. Here is what one looks like:



https://www.facebook.com/reel/956248331448595?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw

The blue tabs on the outside are attached to my chest wall with stitches and a type of acellular dermabond was used to help the device adhere to my tissue. The circle in the middle/top is the port within a self sealing membrane where saline water is injected to fill the expander over time. When it’s time for a fill, the nurse runs a magnet over the skin to locate the port, marks the spot, inserts a needle into the port and slowly injects saline water into the expander. Here’s a great video showing how it’s filled - https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNK2qVtr/

My expanders are currently filled to 250cc and will be filled to 450/500cc over a period of 4/5ish weeks. This is a slightly quicker pace so we can get things going with radiation. Since I don’t have any fat or breast tissue, it’s just my skin and the expanders making for some hard, stiff temps - fat grafting will be a part of the reconstruction process in addition to the initial diep flap tissue transfer.

I meet with radiation on 9/23, and likely begin radiation treatments the following week on 9/28. I’ll share more on that as I learn more.

I started immunotherapy infusions this past Monday (8/26) and that went off without a hitch. I don’t expect to experience much, if any, side effects from that treatment - thank goodness. And honestly, it was nice to see and catch up with all my fave oncology nurses and staff - they are wonderful humans that make all the difference in feeling supported across my care team.

I am restricted from any “vigorous” workouts for 6 weeks from my surgery date so, in the mean time I’ll start rehabbing my shoulder mobility, especially on my left side where the lymph nodes were taken. I am hoping to be back to teaching barre and my regular movement routines by the end of September - fingers crossed!

I know I am still in the throes of treatment BUT, with the lymph nodes negative for cancer and the tumor (along with all my breast tissue) removed, the cancer is essentially gone and that is something to celebrate! The type of cancer I have (Triple Negative) has a 40% recurrence rate within in the first 2-5 years and hormone therapy (think tamoxifen for hormone positive cancers) is not an option. So, radiation and additional immunotherapy treatments are used to target any microscopic cancer cells that may be lingering at the tumor site or anywhere else in my body - all aimed at preventing recurrence from hopefully ever happening again 🤞🏽. Luckily these treatments don’t take me down like chemo or surgeries so I am really looking forward to time to heal and get back to myself in many ways.

I’ve come a long way with a long way still to go. Here’s to living! 🥂

More soon,
V♥️