You have breast cancer, are words you never want to hear.
But every two minutes, a woman in the United States is told this.
Each of these individuals deserves a treatment plan that is tailored to their needs.
Illustration by Bella Geraci / Getty Images
In 2021, however, the status of this gold standard in breast-reconstruction surgery became unclear.
Providers would be able to bill insurance only at the rate for less expensive surgeries.
Elisabeth Potter, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Austin, toldThe Peak,a media platform started byThe Breasties.
Because of their efforts, the decision to change the coding was reversed in August 2023.
That was August 2022.
First would be eight rounds of neoadjuvant chemotherapy over about four months, before surgical extraction of the tumor.
Then, a mastectomy: I said, Take them both.
I don’t want either one of ‘em.
And then, five weeks of daily radiation.
My surgeon said once all that was done, we would get into reconstruction.
That would be the exclamation mark, the last of the major pieces of the puzzle.
In that moment, I knew instinctively that I wanted to use my own tissue.
When you’re in the throes of treatment, everything is a question mark.
There’s so much tension added to treatment as a patient dealing with insurance.
Earlier this year, I started hearing chatter about insurance-code changes.
It would have a ripple effect throughout the breast cancer community.
It freaked me out.
I, too, wrote a letter to CMS.
Even the smallest stumbling block like this has felt like a mountain.
Throughout all of this, even during chemo and radiation, I exercised as much as I possibly could.
It has become an active way for me to participate in my treatment.
That feeling of empowerment helped me be mentally and physically strong enough to endure treatment.
On the day of my DIEP flap surgery, I walked into the operating room with swagger.
I hopped on the bed, not nervous at all.
I was like, Lets do this!
I was so nervous to go home and not have nurses and doctors around me.
I didnt know how I was going to get into bed [using] just my arms.
It was scary, but in this moment I was grateful I was physically fit.
He had to re-create a belly button for me thats how tight my skin was pulled.
Even standing for short periods of time, its excruciatingly painful.
I wish I had done more to strengthen my back.
I spend a lot of time sedentary now because moving at all hurts.
The first thing people say is, Oh, my gosh, you got a tummy tuck.
I didnt get an effing tummy tuck.
My stomach is very swollen I didn’t wake up skinny.
Getting reconstruction on my breasts and using tissue from my abdomen is a very different thing.
Everyone told me this was going to be super hard.
I thought, Okay, I can handle hard.
But this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, the hardest surgery I’ve ever had.
Harder than giving birth or having my mastectomy.
Its been the hardest part of this whole breast cancer process.
The first few days, I truly was like, Why the hell did I do this?
Why didn’t I just do a flat closure?
I could have done that and been fine.
Its been a week since the DIEP flap surgery and Ive started coming out of this black hole.
But now, I am not scared of the dark.
Im not scared of what I’m walking through anymore.
Read more stories about breast cancer.
Now watch one survivor’s story of feeling sexy without nipples.
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