I was diagnosed with ILC, Lt breast and was told I would have to proceed with a mastectomy and so I did. A double mastectomy with nipple sparing and expanders Dec. 2023. I felt great! Everything was going as planned and I had proceeded with filling the expanders. By January 2024, I developed an infection causing cellulitis in the Rt breast with continuous fluid drainage.
I had an incision and drainage with an expander exchange and remained in the hospital for a week. I noticed the skin on the right breast had become extremely thin. I could actually see the plastic piece from the expander. The plastic surgeon told me the thinning was due to having the mastectomy. I was very annoyed because I felt like the doctors were pointing the finger at each other. Nobody could give me clear answers to why this was happening. A month later, I experienced another infection. This time the right breast developed an odor and somehow I developed a serious infection. They repeated the process with an incision and drainage except this time the expander was completely removed and here I was in the hospital for another week. I was devastated! I was on antibiotics nonstop from IV to orally and completely traumatized by the appearance and wasn't sure if I was able to do the DIEP Flap since we stopped filling the expanders.
As we moved into the the third month, I was still walking around with gauze under the breast and was restarting another infection. The plastic surgeon pushed to move the DIEP Flap date up. I had my surgery by March 2024 everything went well. I do have a slight indentation on the right breast and a lot of scar tissue due to having so many drains from the surgeries. I'm happy it is over but deep down inside it changed me mentally. The recovery is no joke! Take your time with healing! I had revision surgery by April 2024 to remove some scar tissue and fine tune, it went well. It was a quick recovery.
My advice is to research your options, do what is best for you and what works best for your lifestyle, and remember everyone does not experience the same things.

I had DIEP surgery done about 2 years after having bad luck with expander surgery that was done at the same time as my double mastectomy and totally botched by my original reconstructive plastic surgeon.

I took some time and found a new highly rated reconstructive surgeon for my DIEP procedure. Only one side of my DIEP surgery survived because the other side didn't have adequate blood flow so the transplanted belly tissue died. After being so horribly botched by the first surgeon I had a lot of muscle and tissue damage to the one breast which is why the new surgeon was unable to get an adequate blood supply and that side developed tissue necrosis and died. I ended up getting expander surgery on the side that DIEP failed on and then had the expander switched out to a regular implant.

With the DIEP surgery they are basically taking that belly fat and transplanting it to your chest to create new breasts and doing microsurgery to connect blood vessels to give that belly fat blood circulation in its new location on your chest so the transplanted tissue will survive. With my DIEP surgery my abdominal muscles were not cut into. However, after DIEP surgery you do get a lot of muscle spasms in your lower abdomen that can go on for weeks or months afterwards. I would talk to your surgeon about your concerns that your hernia surgery might cause you some issues if you have DIEP surgery and see what your surgeon thinks. Also, based on my personal experience, the AI article above is mostly, but not totally accurate. Unless everything goes 100% perfect, which we all know doesn't typically happen for most of us breast cancer patients, the healing time is longer than 6-8 weeks. As far as all of the 12 chest surgeries I've had done the DIEP was the hardest one to recover from, even worse than the original double mastectomy, because you have multiple recovery sites with the belly and chest. I will say that my DIEP reconstructed breast does look the best when compared with the breast that had the implant. Good luck to you with whatever option you decide ❤️

Wishing you well. Love and hugs!

Update. I had left breast masectomy with diep dec 18th. Had some post op anesthesia related issues so was discharged home 12/24. Today I was able to shower, wash my hair independently, perform wound care and drain care with set up assist. Energy slowly returning, lot of rest. My surgeon uses a celebrex/tramadol/tylenol/Valium combo for pain. Im now down to just tylenol and a tramadol at night. Able to stand pretty straight, still slight bend. Left hospital with 3 drains, one was removed day of discharge. I was terrified to get this surgery but am so happy I did ! Im sure its still a journey but seems well worth it.

I hope you are being well taken care of, and that you were able to head home today- and that you are able to rest easier tonight! Gentle hugs!