Heather (00:00):
But aesthetically, I was concerned about from the beginning what I wanted to do. And it was almost like you couldn’t act like you were concerned about that. You should only be concerned with getting better and getting treated and you shouldn’t care. You’re alive. I’m willing to do whatever. The physician, my oncologist, radiation oncologist is going to recommend whatever treatment I can to prevent recurrence. But at the same time, it was important to me in the end. But I didn’t know how to even address that because you sound like you’re going in to say, “Please treat my cancer. I want to survive this.” But at the same time, hey, can you make sure they look good when we’re done? It just sounds odd. The breast surgeon he was referring to, his friend he knew from residency that he had reached out to, he had recommended a couple plastic surgeons and then they set me up with the first one locally in Louisville.

(00:56):
And he was supposed to be the plastic surgeon to go to, the best that I guess they would recommend. And he was like, “Well, I don’t know if I can do that.” He’s like, “We can try to do that, but I can’t promise you that.” And I’m like, “What do you mean? I understand consent. I understand risk and benefits. I understand if you’re in surgery and something goes wrong or you have to do something different. That’s okay. And you consent to that. But I also was not going to go in there without even knowing what’s going to happen, without you giving me reassurance that you’re going to make your best effort to try and do what I want. And if for some reason you can’t, then okay.” I left there. I was so upset. I mean, I called you in the parking lot because you were texting me, I think, and you knew something was wrong.

(01:43):
It was like your response to text and I could just feel like, okay, this did not go well.

Heather (01:47):
So we talked and I started doing research and I found the Breast Center here. I think I’d seen a couple of people post about it in the groups, but I did an internet search and I started looking at different options. I sent an email and I just –

Husband (02:04):
He’s upset. I’m not doing that. There’s no way I’m going to do that surgery. And I had already spoken to a partner. One of my partner, his wife had had breast cancer. She had a very complicated course. And I remember him telling me about going somewhere. So at the same point that she’s calling me saying, “Hey, I’ve sent all this stuff to this center. I’m getting the information from my partner that this is where his wife went. And by the way, please – It’s the same. She wants you to call her so she could talk to you.” And so at that point, I do

Heather (02:35):
Talk to her that night at the exact same place. I called that night and talked to her and his partner for maybe like an hour. And I mean, they just sang praises for this place. Just hearing that from her, her experience, her husband’s an ED physician like Andrew from the medical side, knowing another physician completely recommended this place. And the physicians here was. I needed that. I probably would’ve still gone forward, but knowing that, and it’s the same place I sent that message, it was like, okay, this is meant to be. When we walked in here, just seeing it, or those rooms, or in the hospital itself, they talked about just you feel like you’re on vacation. I think it’s the best in the nation. I truly feel like that you’re not going to get better care or better results. I just knew right away without even, just from my one conversation and then coming in here that this was awesome.

(03:37):
Dr. Cabiling, he’s just so nice, down to earth, personable, but he comes across as very intelligent, confident, smart, comfortable in what he does.

Husband (03:52):
I told her coming in, my experience was everybody that’s tops in their class is going to be skill 100 and personality zero. But it’s just like not – Dr. Cabiling came in and he was personable. It was like, okay, this is different.

Heather (04:09):
He’s very thoroughly explaining the science and he is explaining it in a way where I understand. You probably appreciated more of the medical side of things. Well, I think

Husband (04:21):
It was an easy conversation where he explained it to both of us. So he gave me enough medicine that I felt comfortable and at the same time she didn’t feel like he was talking at a different level

Heather (04:34):
Kind of a thing. And it was just like that quiet confidence like, here you go, that’s what you need. And to me, I appreciate that. You tell me. If you’re confident, I want to know that. If you’re that confident, I’m confident. I wish everyone knew this, that you don’t have to make a decision that day. You’re not limited to just your local providers. There are other options. And don’t ever feel like you can’t get a second opinion. You don’t have to just look at how you’re treating cancer, the medical side of things. It’s okay to be concerned about and care about aesthetics and how you look.

Husband (05:16):
There are a lot of options, a lot of information. Look up the information and then you have options before you make a decision. So I think that the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery gave me Heather back.

Heather (05:35):
Don’t do that.

Husband (05:36):
It gave me back because she is a confident person and I hated seeing her. It gave me Heather back. And then for us, again, it gave us our time back. For us training for the triathlons and marathons and stuff like that, that was like our time. With five kids, we were always so busy. So the training time is really where we had our bond. And so I think it’s going to give us setback.

Heather (06:05):
Center for Restorative Breast Surgery gave me confidence, just peace of mind, knowing that I can be happy in my own skin again. I can go back to who I was. I know I’ll never be the same person, but I think I’ll be as close to that person as I can having come here.