I still don't have a date for my breast reconstruction, but I did move one step closer to that day when I took a call this morning from a nurse in The Ottawa Hospital admissions department to prepare for my upcoming surgery.

The pre-op call represented the last step before receiving a date and going to the hospital for surgery. Since my February consultation with Dr. Zhang, the plastic surgeon who will perform the surgery, and my February CT scan, I've been waiting for my operation date. As Dr. Zhang explained to me in February, my date for surgery is largely dependent on operating room time, which seems to be scarce.

The pre-op call covered familiar ground: height, weight, allergies, medications, prior surgeries, family contacts, prep the day before and the morning of surgery, what to bring to the hospital, where to present myself, how long the surgery will take, pain management after the operation. Despite the fact that I've been through multiple surgeries, including four in the last four years, and that I was familiar with all the instructions, the call gave me butterflies in my stomach.

While I haven't dwelled on the surgery—here in this blog or in conversation with others—not a day has gone by in the last year that I haven't thought about my situation. Sometimes, I lament that I experienced a complication in my right breast that necessitated the removal of the breast implant. Other times, I worry that I might experience another complication after the upcoming surgery. Often, though, I simply remind myself that I did what I did because I wanted to avoid breast cancer—a risk that was exceedingly high (50-85%) because of the mutation in my BRCA2 gene. No matter what happens with the reconstruction, the fact remains that my breast tissue is almost entirely gone and my estimated risk of breast cancer is now just 5-8%.

I expect that I will get short notice for my surgery date, perhaps just a week or two. But I'm ready. I remember my conversation almost a year ago with Dr. St. Denis-Katz, a doctor in the plastic surgery department at The Ottawa Hospital, who informed me that my breast implant was too contaminated with bacteria to be salvaged with antibiotics. When I asked her when reconstruction could occur, she said that it would be 6 to 12 months before my surgeons would contemplate any sort of reconstruction. That seemed like an eternity.

And yet, here we are, almost a year after my bilateral mastectomy with immediate reconstruction on July 7, 2023, and almost 11 months since my emergency surgery to remove the infected implant on August 3, 2023. Since then, I've relied on my knitted knockers to create a balanced profile. My hope is that with the upcoming breast reconstruction, I will once again be balanced, whatever that may look like.