Primary care visit and research

I wasn’t sure if my primary care physician could do the EKG, the blood work and the chest x-ray that my plastic surgeon said needed done before surgery, but I am on Xarelto, a blood thinner, for previous DVT, so I made an appointment for July 17 with my PCP.

At my visit, my doctor and I discussed my upcoming surgery and he gave me a piece of information that I'm glad I didn't find out until after my insurance had been approved. He told me that in 25 years of his private practice he had recommended a number of women for a breast reduction, but that none of them had ever been approved.

He was very happy for me and said that he would put the orders in for my tests, but they could only do the EKG at his office, the other ones would need done at the main hospital. We then discussed how long before the procedure I should stop the Xarelto, whether or not I would need a lovenox or heparin bridge and when to restart the Xarelto after surgery. We decided that 3 days before surgery would be enough time, that I wouldn't need a lovenox bridge, and that I should start the Xarelto the day after surgery.

The nurse did the EKG and the doc said that everything looked great.

I was already dressed and out for a doctor visit, so I headed right to the hospital to get the blood work and the x-ray done right then. It was already only 1 week until my pre-op appointment and I just wanted to get it done.

I got the x-ray and blood draw and went home to wait for the results.

I was already getting more and more nervous about the surgery...I had been reading everything I could about other peoples experiences, I watched the animated video on the doctors website of the surgery and I even watched a real surgery (I don't recommend this!) The surgeon's assistant told me that I could email her with any questions or concerns I had, so I sent her a question about the type of anesthetic that my surgeon would be using and let her know I was slightly freaking out. I'd had my breasts since I was 15. I literally was flat chested at the beginning of the summer before freshman year and by the beginning of the school year I had my 36G chest.

The one thing I noticed when I was researching was that there were a lot of younger women who had been blogging about their experience, but none of them were older....I'm only 50, but the last video that I watched where I got the idea to go to Ulta to get a blowout was from a senior in high school. Her recovery experience is a little different than mine, thus, this blog.

My blood work came back fine and my chest x-ray showed my heart was fine, but that I had a couple of little issues that wouldn't interfere with the surgery. The one thing that the x-ray did show, which wasn't in the initial insurance decision was that I had mild thoracic spondylosis...another reason to get the surgery.

Next, we go to the pre-op.