Decisions on surgery

You really should discuss this fully with your medical team, but at the end of the day, you have to push for what feels right for you. I was diagnosed back in 2016 and a lot of statistics were presented to me, and the most mentioned was that if the existing cancer was to recur, it would either be a so called 'local recurrence', that is bits were left behind and started to grow again or remaining cells would have metastacised and spread to distant parts, most likely the bones, liver, lungs or brain...very rarely to the other breast. At that time, the statistics for breast cancer were 1 in 8 (which is 12.5%)...now it's 1 in 7 (which is 14.2%). I presented my case to my surgeon that according to the statistics, the chances of a brand new, totally unrelated to my present cancer, chances of cancer in the other breast was 12.5% which was too high for me and my mental health. I told her I understood fully what she had explained about spread from my known cancer, but that I was looking at my chances of developing a future breast cancer in the 'healthy' breast. Mine was also hormone positive and she was telling me that a 3-5% improvement of long term survival from taking hormone suppressants, (for ten years), was significant...and (quote)..."Every percentage point with cancer is significant". I turned her words back to her and said "So 3-5% is a high number in the cancer world to prevent it coming back, but 12.5% to prevent a new cancer is insignificant?...That makes no sense to me". She threw in the towel and agreed to remove both, and a good thing too, as the pathology on the removed 'healthy' breast showed numerous areas of cells which have a strong history of 'going bad'.