Really struggling with needing mastectomy

Dear TannieT​ 

Surgery is a tough one - it depends a great deal on managing mind over emotions and on your relationship with your body. I had fairly large breasts too (still have one!) and I can readily understand how frustrating it must be to face a mastectomy after finally getting to feel good about your breasts (rather than being perhaps overly conscious of them).  

But they are not you. They don't define you. And while I personally don't go along with the 'your breasts are trying to kill you' line (they are not sentient beings!), breasts with cancer are dangerous. 

You haven't said if you are considering reconstruction, some do, some don't. I had surgery first, then chemo and didn't have much time to think about it, which possibly helped. I didn't have reconstruction, remain cheerfully lop-sided and use a prosthesis. For others, reconstruction is an important part of recovery. Sometimes it is useful to wait and see exactly how you react to no breasts before taking further action. 

Most of all, it's about accepting that this has happened - many of us felt perfectly healthy, had no history of cancer in our families - I didn't even find a lump. What helped me was to spend as little time as possible about what was, and as much as possible about what could be, accepting that there would be some change but that it was a new chapter, not the end of my story. In this new chapter, you can decide - reconstruction, small breasts, bigger breasts, sportily flat! And give some love to all the rest of your body, which is doing the hard yards to help you recover. Best wishes.