Please page Tom Irving? He’s expecting me.

Since this is my first foray into plastic surgery, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned – these people really take their jobs seriously. Their residencies are 7 years long! They have to know all the body parts. Impressive. They won’t let anyone, including other healthcare providers touch or even go near their “work”. My surgeon told me to ignore anything my visiting nurse says after surgery and to never, ever, oh GOD NO, do NOT go to the Emergency Room with any concerns about my chest after surgery and to, for the LOVE OF GOD JUST CALL HIM.

For example, if I needed a dressing changed, even on the weekend, I was to call the office and speak to the answering service who would put me in touch with the physician on call. To test this theory and make sure those lazy residents were really on their toes, I did just that, last Sunday.  The dressing on my right (your left) nipple — I really don’t like that word but you’d be surprised with how comfortable I have become saying it — needed changing. As it turns out, a nipple/skin-sparing mastectomy can be quite hard on the poor nipples. They go into a kind of distress after the surgery and need time to cope with the loss of their supporting tissue. I understand that. I have wept myself, it’s really only fair that my nipples get to also. (I will not include a picture, I promise, but imagine the girls kind of look like this as a result: 😷 .)

After speaking with the physician on call, I was to go to MGH and have the front desk just page him, and he’d come down and escort me to the clinic.  Easy. My sister and I arrived and asked the nice old man at the front desk to please page Tom Irving, and that he was a plastic surgery resident who was expecting me. I was quite sure that was his name. Until I wasn’t, because there is no Tom Irving at Mass General. My mind is a sieve these days – there’s a lot of information being processed and several medications being ingested, so I started rattling off other T- names and then other I-surnames until finally we figured it out. Ten minutes later. The man at the desk was quite rattled by the time we found him. His name was not at all Tom Irving. But close.  He came down ten minutes later to get us. And he ended up being totally hot.

Now I know the doctors really only see the wound/body part/issue they are treating. But the patients see the whole doctor. And this one was really handsome. So here I am totally embarrassed that this hot young man is going to change my freaking nipple dressing. And my sister is wondering whether she can sneak off her wedding rings. And we are both trying to Google him as we walk into the clinic. It was mortifying. And hilarious. It kind of made my weekend. Sad? You decide.

Anyway, I had my real follow-up appointment with my actual surgeon later that week and while HE was checking out the situation, I felt the need to go and tell him the story about the wrong name and the cute resident, and how all plastic surgeons seem to be good-looking, and was that a thing? And that I was embarrassed that he had to poke at my nipple on a Sunday, but it was probably better than whatever else a plastic surgeon on call on a Sunday at MGH was seeing.

My surgeon, who has quite a sense of humor, let me tell you, then told me if I’d like, he could arrange to have Tom Irving (not) at my next appointment? and I was like OH GOD NO. End of appointment. But it gets better.

So then, Mom and I (she witnessed this whole thing and can testify to the fact that all of this actually happened, that I am actually this much of a boob, pun intended) go and check out with my new friend A., because WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT, I LOVE all the new people in my cancer life, and she’s the assistant to the surgeon so I have seen her like four times in the last three weeks, so we are best friends. Sidebar: I am certain I am one of the more entertaining cancer patients she has seen, because she seems to like me too, and I think we are getting drinks next week. I tell her the story while she’s finding me my next appointment and she not only wants to know if he is married, but she tells me that the plastic surgeon is surely going to tell Tom (not) all about this and she wouldn’t be surprised if he paged him the minute he left my exam room.

Which is mortifying and hilarious. AND WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT…

Who walks right through the checkout area and looks right at me?

Dr. Tom Irving.

Dr. Plastic Surgeon sold me down the river.

I looked at A., and said “oh my god, give me my appointment card! I have to get out of here! And look him up on your MGH intranet, will you!?”

I grabbed my mother and ducked, and ran out of the door.

I’m 40. This happened.