A year ago today I had the last of my radiotherapy beamz (of 25). Radio changes skin and tissue, which takes time to heal. So I had a delayed-immediate reconstruction: a skin-sparing mastectomy with an expander (by my oncoplastic surgeon) prior to radio, followed by a DIEP (by my plastic surgeon). My plazzy’s preference was to reconstruct after radio once any changes had settled down (and to not reconstruct beforehand to avoid my new foob from being damaged). At first I was really disappointed as this extended my treatment timeline beyond the original 8 months. I had the option to go with another surgeon whose opinion differed, but I chose not to. It made sense to me to wait, especially after my surgeon said that the blood vessel the transplanted tissue would be connected to could be “fried” by radio, and this wouldn’t be known until the op. I’m sure fried isn’t a technical term, but it’s quite persuasive! 😳😂 . Here’s to my first anni of the end of “active treatment”.