Sally (00:00):
And I said, “I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now. This struck me completely out of the blue. We were just not prepared at all. So I was diagnosed through a routine mammogram, 46 years old, no underlying health conditions, risk factors, anything like that. And went in for my routine mammogram and they found a spot. And that’s where my story began. I’m a nurse and I went into total patient mode and I could not think straight. I needed someone else to help me figure out what to do. So I called my neighbor and I said,” Tell me exactly what you did, who you went to. “And she said,” You have to go to Dr. Wright. “And before I even got home, she had called Dr. Wright’s office for me and the ball started rolling and the rest is history. At that point I was still in shock and I needed someone to hold my hand, but yet I needed no nonsense.

(00:54):
Dr. Wright walked in and the first thing that I said to her was, ” Listen, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a busy life ahead of me. My daughter’s graduating from high school in two weeks. We have our whole lives in front of us. I just need you to tell me what I need to do and I’m going to do it. “And she very quickly laid it out for me, very much was no nonsense. Said,” All right, this is what I think we need to do. Here are your options, but here would be my recommendation. “And I felt comfortable with her. I didn’t feel like she was beating around the bush. I didn’t feel like she was trying to sell me on one version versus another. She laid it out, but very much listened to where I wanted to be in the process and how quickly I wanted to do that.

(01:37):
And we both, my husband and I left there just knowing that was the right team and I never looked back. I really honestly had no idea there was other options out there besides the implants. I went into all of this kind of thinking that that might be what was presented to me. And then I was really thankful having known a little bit about it through my neighbor and then also having Dr. Wright explain to me the different options. Dr. Wright was great. She was very honest with me about my body type and shape and where I would get with the two different options, implant versus a tissue transfer. And to me, it just made the most sense. I really wanted to be done. I wanted it to be more natural looking. And so when she offered the S – GAP as an option, I really felt like it just made sense.

(02:24):
And I will say at this point, my breasts look almost identical to what I had before. I had a girlfriend last week. I was in a bathing suit and she said, “Honestly, if I didn’t know your story, I would not have known you ever even had anything done.” And that was a compliment to me because it was important to me moving forward. I didn’t want it to define me in a way where everywhere I went, that’s all anyone could see. And I was really thankful that doing the tie transfer really gave me that natural appearance. And Dr. Wright did such an amazing job of making the breast shape look almost identical to what it was beforehand. The most surprising thing to me has been that I’m coming up on a year since surgery and my body is so similar to where it was before that I don’t even stop and think about it anymore when I’m getting out of the shower, when I’m putting clothes on.

(03:17):
And I mean, I will tell you that immediately after surgery, you don’t think that you’ll ever feel that way, but it’s amazing to me that a year later it’s not crossing my mind. It’s just not a thought in every moment like it was an initial diagnosis, an initial surgery that the reconstruction itself has been so just natural and in appearance and in healing that over time you just kind of move on and you are back to who you were before and it doesn’t really have to define you. And you wear the clothes you wore and life moves on. From the minute I walked in the door of the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery, I felt welcome. I felt cared for, loved just in every interaction from that first day moving forward. There’s just a care and compassion with the whole entire team that makes you feel like you’re in the right place.

(04:15):
I just so appreciate everything that every single one of them did and continues to do even through my follow-ups. It’s where I needed to be. And if it could be serendipitous in such a terrible kind of way, it was. I really believed that I had two paths to choose at the time. I could let it consume me and I could really let it be just the weight of everything carrying forward or I could choose the opposite. And I’m really thankful that I chose the mentality of I really needed to push forward. I also have two daughters that are now young adults that were watching me go through this process and I needed to be strength for them because I needed them to see mom can do hard things, very hard things to have been able to push through that, come out on the other side and be stronger, braver, I think was just such a blessing.

(05:06):
I mean, which sounds completely crazy. If you were to ask me what the surgery gave me, in one sentence, it would be it gave me my life back. It gave me the ability to just go back to living.