The surgery decision.

After I finished chemotherapy I had another breast MRI and then follow up appointments with both my medical oncologist and my surgical oncologist.  I met with my surgeon first and she asked me if I’d given any thought to which surgery I was going to have.

I had a choice of 3 different surgeries, all with different pros and cons.  The least invasive would be a Lumpectomy with removal of the involved lymph nodes.  This would have a

shorter recovery time, and didn’t carry much more risk of the cancer returning. But with this choice I would need to have mammograms every 6 months.  The next choice was to have a single mastectomy with node removal.  This would involve removing my left breast and involved lymph nodes.  I would still need mammograms on my right breast, and reconstruction or a prosthetic for my left breast.  My final choice was a bilateral mastectomy and removal of lymph nodes on my left side.  This would mean no cancer screenings after treatment is complete.  Just yearly visits with my oncologist to make sure I’m doing well. 

I spent a lot of time gathering information from others who have the same disease and had to make the same choice.  Ultimately I chose to have a bilateral mastectomy.  The thought of having to go through the stress of screenings every 6 months was not something I wanted.  I joked that my breasts tried to kill me so I was getting them cut off.  But the truth is I wanted to do absolutely everything I could to make sure this cancer doesn’t come back.  I also can admit that I wanted to be symmetrical.  For right now I mostly go flat, and I will have reconstruction in the summer.

This was not an easy choice to make.  Losing my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes was really hard for me to deal with! But choosing to have my breasts removed was a whole other level of hard.  They had nursed my three girls, and allowed me so much bonding time with them.  I wondered if I’d feel less like a woman without them.  But ultimately I decided it was all cosmetic.  No one part of my body makes me who I am.  Ultimately it’s my heart, soul, and thoughts that make me who I am.  And I chose to be a fighter, whose proud of her scars, short gray hair, and barely there eyelashes!