New diagnosis

Hi Sarah (and also Jen), Thought I'd put this here because Jen will be asked about her wishes re reconstruction when she sees her surgeon. But you mention your new decision about reconstruction. . My daughter just gave me some information about breast reconstruction, that I had not come across before that I thought you might find helpful since last post you were upset that you had to wait a year before you could consider it.. I too was deciding that I probably would not have breast reconstruction, though I have put that decision off to Feb15 or Sept 15. Personally, I want to wait through the period when a local recurrence is most likely so they don't have to cut it all out again for further surgery, and so I am not checking for lumps through a breast which is in the process of being reconstructed so likely to be lumpy anyway. But that's just me, and others, maybe you, see it differently

First is that you can have a good and effective breast reconstruction done months or even years after a mastectomy so you don't have to make a permanent decision now. Second is that so long as you have not had intensive radiotherapy on the chest skin and it will still stretch ok, you can often have the skin stretched with expanders and then an implant inserted, either silicon or saline to reshape the breast or breasts, and these are now generally really safe, not like the old ones. Then a nipple can be surgically constructed and an areola tattooed on. Third  they have developed an amazing array of surgical techniques that use either stomach tissue or shoulder/back muscle tissue to create a breast from your own tissue, with an implant if necessary to enlarge it beyond the size possible with your own tissue.

Isn't it an amazing world we live in!

Jessica