Bravebeauty bravebeauty@cox.net

Hi Please forward this to your mailing list. I want to add my own experience. I was in the hospital one night following my own bi-lateral mastectomy - not for breast cancer but to remove silicone injected breasts that had solidified and become huge. The surgeons insisted that the silicone would be the same greasy film like substance that was injected into both my breasts on numerous times in 1971 by a crooked unethical doctor who told me he was using "medically approved silicone" which was a blatant lie - but I did not have access to the internet at the time. I was young and gullible and naive. I asked the surgeon and his five other resident surgeons in the tiny room, "But my breasts feel like plastic. Don't you think the silicone hardened?" "No way. Greasy slime!" I entered the hospital at 5:00 a.m. that morning, early that afternoon, the head surgeon walked into my room and shook my hand, "Congratulations! You were right! I was wrong. The silicone had hardened, it all looked like solidified sea sponge. Never seen anything like it. It is a very rare condition called Siliconoma." I was in a daze - AND in terrible pain with my chest wrapped like a mummy. However, I was discharged the next morning. My friend brought me to my apartment, went to work and was able to spend one night. I was alone. I had tubing under my skin on both sides of my chest (no one told me about THESE BEFORE surgery). The drains were to drain the blood and fluid from my chest. One of the drains became plugged with a blood clot. It was the weekend. So I called 911. The paramedics came, totally freaked out not knowing what to do. They could bring me to a local hospital - not the ER where I had the surgery, so I declined. They checked my blood pressure, eyes, pulse and I told them as long as I was not going to throw a blood clot, I would deal with it. When they left, I was concerned. I could see the blood clot clogging the tube to the drain. AHA, I had an idea how to clear the blood clot. On Monday or whenever my follow up appointment, my friend drove me to the hospital. I told the surgeon about the blood clot. He looked at both the drains and said he could not see a blood clot. I told him, "Well, that's because I cleared the blood clot from the drain!" "How did you do that?" He asked. "I used a toothpick," I mumbled. "A TOOTHPICK! YOU COULD HAVE BECOME INFECTED!" I shrugged a little because of the pain, and responded, "Yes, but Dr. Schmidt, it was a CLEAN toothpick!" This is my response to this email. Yes, women who undergo a mastectomy or bi-lateral mastectomy need to be in the hospital, there are many complications the surgeons do not inform the patient about - believe me. It is a whole other story about having those drains removed.

Hi all-

I received the below email today and checked it out on snopes.com. It's legit. There's a link to a petition to show your support for a bill calling for mandatory 48-hour hospital stays after mastectomies. It only takes a few seconds.

From a nurse: I'll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the Doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. So there I sat with my patients, giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank You they muttered. A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a Mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards.

Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure.

Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery. It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it really quick! Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others. You know who will do the same. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require Insurance Companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through mastectomy' where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!! Sign the petition by clicking on the Web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family, and on behalf of all women,

THANKS.

www.jussta.com