Question about plastic surgery.

So my mom recently had her sentinel lymph node removed and biopsied and it came back negative. Yay! Anyway the surgeon *****moved it is a cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon. I went with her to her appointment today and spoke with one of the nurses about their policies and procedures and what my next steps will eventually be for plastic surgery. I do plan on doing the research but I figured I'd ask here too. The nurse mentioned doing the abdomen and breasts together and then thighs and arms together. Are the parts of the body they choose to work on at once just a preference or is this generally how it goes? I did call around a couple weeks ago and one place I spoke with made it sound like they do thighs/abdomen and breasts/arms. My other question is the nurse today told me that this surgery takes about 12 hours (abdomen/breasts) is that normal? This surgeon apparently is the best in the area. My PCP recommend him, my surgeons office recommended him and both my mother and myself have spoken to other medical and nonmedical people and they all say the same things that he's meticulous and takes his time but 12 hours seems like a lot. If you had plastics how long was your surgery and what did you have done?

Also I just want to mention I'm not looking to have surgery until next spring/summer. I'm just exploring my options now because I know to possibly get insurance approval on my panni I need to have any irritation or rash documented and what treatments we've tried to fix it over the course of several months. So please refrain from reminding me I'm only 10 months out. Thanks.

THAT is a long surgery for so few procedures. Who is the surgeon?

My surgeon is Dr. Joseph Capella and he is doing a body lift, monsplasty. inner thigh lift, arm lift, flankplasty, breast lift in 6-hours.

Make sure your surgeon is experienced with massive weight loss patients. Ash him/her how many of these procedures he has done. 

Good luck!

My surgeon wouldn't do tummy and breast together since the surgery would be too long. I did full LBL & arms then Thighs and breasts. There a a lot of surgeons who won't do the thighs and tummy together as they say they are pulling in 2 different directions. Both of my surgeries were about 7+ hours and that's about the longest my surgeon wanted to do. Every surgeon is different, you'll just have to ask the ones in your area what they will do together and go with who you feel most comfortable. with.

Dr Sauceda uses an epidural and twilight sedation so that he can have you under longer.  My surgery was 12hrs for LBL, BL, arms, and small groin thigh lift.  My face & neck lift was 7 hrs.

Ditto on Sauceda.  he does all at once.

 

The only other person I talked to that agreed to "same day" was Dr. Kavali in Atlanta.  She has her two PA's in the OR with her doing her stiching and she would only agree to do it if I was very close to goal and didn't need much lipo, which is apparently time consuming!