TO BOOB, OR NOT TO BOOB

By Liza L Hernandez

Following a breast cancer diagnosis and bilateral mastectomy, I chose reconstructive surgery with implants. Life with my new boobs lasted 16 happy years. Then the point came when I had to replace the implants after they became hard and painful. I researched my options for removing the implants and learned about an aesthetic flat closure procedur

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liza L Hernandez
• Release date: Aug 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987004920

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

MY FIRST MAMMOGRAM

It all started with a bruise from a disastrous mammogram. I thought mammograms were supposed to find lumps, not cause them. In 2004, I was 37 and went for my first and only mammogram. The room was cold, the metal clamps on my breast were icy and painful, the technician beside me was just as cold and emotionless. I was at an imaging center getting my breast flattened between two scanning plates for what the medical community calls a mammogram and what I call a prehistoric form of torture. I did not want to be that difficult patient so I did my best to suck it up. Nevertheless, it seemed like the more I could endure, the more the technician tested my strength. I followed her robotic instructions through gritted teeth, as the plate came down tighter and tighter, stretching my breast into a pancake, to the point I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I had to end my misery and tell her, Please stop. By the time I reached my limit, it was over, and I got out of there as fast as possible.

I went to the mammogram appointment during my lunch hour since it was in the same plaza as the office where I worked. I was the in-house accountant for a group of cardiologists. Before getting my accounting degree, I worked for doctors doing insurance billing. I had dropped out of college after my first year. When my father found out I spent more time going to the beach than my classes, he gave me an ultimatum to either take school seriously or get a job, so I quit and got work at a bank. A few years later, bored of banking, I went to work for a doctor filing claims to the insurance companies for patient visits. I enjoyed that job immensely, the location was on the island of Palm Beach, where the rich and famous lived, and I was fortunate to meet many fascinating people. I loved the doctor and his wife with whom I worked very closely. His wife taught me all about insurance billing and I felt the thrill of finding the best code combinations for the maximum benefits since insurance companies pay only what is covered. It is kind of like playing a game of chess. Health insurance billing is a sort of art and you must understand diagnosis codes and procedure codes.

After having our second child, Rigo Jr., my husband and I decided I would stay home with the kids during the day and go back to college at night. After finishing college, I went to look for a job in accounting. I tried a temp agency so I could work at various places and see which field I preferred. I wasn’t too fond of most assignments, so I returned to the medical field. My first position was at a hospital off-site office that had a large group of affiliated physicians. I liked the job and the people I worked with a lot. After a few years, that division broke up, and an opportunity from my manager blessed me. She found a new position with a cardiologist group close to my home and offered me a job. I paid all the bills and managed various bank accounts for the clinic and the partner physicians. I reconciled payroll, the bank accounts, and broke down credit-card expenses. Then I sent it all off to the certified public accountant for tax filing and closing entries. The office had about 30 staff, including the physicians. We had all worked there for a long time and became a family.

After the mammogram, I headed back to my office in pain and had to put ice on my chest. My friend and coworker Rada, a nurse, and a very observant person, noticed me holding ice on my chest with tears in my eyes and asked me what was wrong. When I told her, she said, That’s not normal. That shouldn’t have happened. Being very protective, Rada went to one of the doctors we worked for and suggested that he call the managing doctor of the facility and inform him about what happened.

The technician gave me a permanent hematoma, which is a clot of blood swelling in tissue.

The doctor I worked for spoke with the managing partner of the imaging center. As soon as he got off the phone, he called me into his office. I went into his office expecting to hear that the technician was told not to harm anyone else. My doctor confirmed that the imaging center technician was told not to do that again. She was put on probation because, apparently, mine wasn’t the first complaint.

After telling me about the technician, his demeanor changed, and he said, There’s more.

Oh, my God, I thought, and answered, Okay. I was fine with just hearing about the technician never hurting anyone else.

I wanted to be told that I was fine, but deep down I knew something was wrong with me and was scared to find out. My gut told me I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. As my father always said, your gut never lies. He was right again. The mammogram revealed something, and I would need to go for a biopsy. I hoped the findings were my new hematoma, but the spot was in a different location. The rest of that day passed in a blur.

Once the shock wore off, I called to tell my husband. I’m sure it’s probably nothing, I said, trying to reassure him, trying to reassure myself. Neither of us was too worried since I had had cysts in the past. Later that evening, after the kids were relaxing in their rooms, we sat in the backyard and talked. It was still 80 degrees and the steamy summer air was thick and humid, swirling with mosquitos and the smell of salt air. The moon lit the tops of the feathery palm trees and splashes of pinky bougainvillea in the yard beyond. I stared straight ahead, numbly, watching the pool vacuum moving mechanically around in the swimming pool.

Did the doctor say when the test will be done? Rigo asked.

Soon. I took a deep breath, my eyes misting. I’m scared of the biopsy, not because of the results, but being stabbed with a needle in my breast. My breasts had been through enough with breastfeeding three children and the recent mammogram. Anticipating a long needle being inserted in the side of my chest while I was lying face down on a table for the doctor to get a biopsy was terrifying.

I’m sorry you have to go through that, but it has to be done. He leaned over and hugged me tight. Liza, you’re much stronger than you think. Everything will be okay.

Still stunned, I clung on to those tender words, basking in his warmth and hoping like hell that it was nothing. But I was unconvinced, standing on the razor’s edge.

CHAPTER TWO

MEET LIZA

In 2004, I was an average middle-class wife, living in the home my best friend Melissa grew up in and where we’d spent many days playing in and getting thrown out of by her mother as kids. The sage-green, four-bedroom midcentury, ranch-style house was located two streets over from my childhood home and where my parents still lived. After Melissa, whom we called Missy, and her brother left home, their mother sold their home to her friend. Then her friend sold it to my husband and me in 2002. When we bought the house, it was a modest redbrick with white trim and a blazing red door, which all the kids in the neighborhood used to tease Missy about since a red door was not a common color for a door back then. She has a sense of humor and just explained it was easier for her family to find their house. The couple we bought it from had hardly remodeled it, so it was basically Missy’s house. I know, I’m a real adventurer. I literally moved two streets away from my parents. I’m from the South—South Florida, that is. I was born in a hospital in West Palm Beach.

My parents came to Florida because my father was a rocket engineer. He was from Greensboro, North Carolina. My mother, Ann, was from Rome, Georgia, and they met while living in Atlanta. Henry, my father, was attending the Georgia Institute of Technology College studying to become an aerospace engineer, while my mother was the secretary to the vice president of Coca-Cola at the time. My father finished his degree and went to work for Pratt & Whitney. After getting married, my parents moved to Connecticut before coming down to Florida. Dad told me Connecticut was way too cold for him.

I grew up in a small town that was basically built for the Pratt & Whitney employees and their families. My best friends were Amy Jo and Missy Jo, and I am Liza Lee. My mother used to call me General Lee because I was bossy. That kind of sounds like we could’ve been in an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard, an 80s action-comedy TV series with lots of southern outlaws and car chases.

Anyways, by 2004, I was a mother just barely getting things done. My family called me Last-Minute Liza, lovingly coined by my daughter Alexus. I know that sounds bad, but I figured if I could cram more stuff in before leaving the house, I would have less to do later. I knew all the shortcuts in town and used them regularly. I had a great husband (Rigo, short for Rigoberto), three beautiful children (Alexus, 13; Rigo Jr., 10; and Alyssa, 3), two sweet dogs (Patsey, a Labrador mix, and Pixie, a Chihuahua), and a wonderful but terminally ill mother (Ann).

I worked full-time and took night classes in college to further my career. My son Rigo Jr. was in travel baseball then, and drive-through dinners were a large part of our lives. I regularly drove around town in a minivan carrying a playpen, stroller, Alexus, Rigo Jr. and Alyssa to baseball practices and games. I didn’t have to drive the van when my husband went with us since he prefers to drive. I still had to pack all the drinks, snacks, stroller, playpen, toys, baseball equipment, sunblock, and mosquito spray since we live in steamy, subtropical Florida.

Occasionally, my mother would go with me to my son’s practices. Luckily for me, Kia made a van called the Kia Sedona. Ours had a roof-mounted DVD system and flip-down TV. It also had air-conditioning vents everywhere, including the back row. I would put Alyssa, my toddler daughter, in the last row, crank up the AC, give her a blanket and a snack, and turn on her favorite movie, The Grinch. After that, I barely heard a peep out of her.

My mother, however, gave me her opinion regularly on my choice of movies for my daughter. She cringed every time she heard the Grinch say, Hate, hate, double hate, loathe entirely. I think she cringed at everything that came from the Grinch’s mouth, which I believe entertained Alyssa. My mom strongly disagreed with the Grinch’s behavior. Looking back on it, I