JudithCST's Journey with Invasive (Infiltrating) Ductal Carcin...

I started my reconstruction on the same day as my mastectomies. I had drains for a year, and several infections requiring hospitalization due to a persistent seroma that would not go away. It's been over two years since my surgeries and I'm finally started to feel more like myself again, I still have more corrective reconstruction to do, but I am in no hurry at this point. Lots of complications from this reconstruction. I wish every day that I had never done it.

8 weeks of adriamycin, 8 weeks of taxol. Wasn't as bad as I expected, but it's no day at the beach. The taxol was a little harder to manage than the adriamycin.

Infections after latissimus flap reconstruction: enterococcus, pasteurella and c-diff (not all at once fortunately but all requiring hospitalization). I became an expert in administering my own intravenous antibiotics at home. I live alone so it was challenging, but educational. I also had to have one of my wounds surgically debrided and needed to carry a wound vac around for 3 months after that to try to resolve a persistent seroma that kept getting infected relative to my transflap reconstruction.

6 weeks of radiation, 3 locations, 5 days a week. Glad that's over!