Fairly new diagnosis surgery questions
Hello :) Gosh its taken me a long time to make the decision to get myself here but finally after lurking around here I am!! I was diagnosed in October 2021 out of the blue as I am sure we all were...
Forum Discussion
Hi @Christabel03
This is the $60 million question!
I am a 63 year old (62 when diagnosed) and went from talk of a lumpectomy to a mastectomy ( my tumour was initially thought to be 4.5 cm but turned out to be 5.5 cm and lobular which is more like a spider web than a neat lump) and then to discussion about a double mastectomy.
At first I thought “why get rid of a perfectly healthy breast “ especially as I did not have any genetic predisposition to breast cancer.
My breast cancer surgeon said there was an approx 10 percent chance of me getting breast cancer in the other breast and asked “ how risk averse are you”?
The answer was “ very”.
I am the sort of person who always pays extra to get no excess on the insurance policy when I hire a car.
An added factor for me was I wanted to have the DIEP flap reconstruction ( where you use your tummy fat) and you can only do that once .
I stressed a lot about the decision and talked to lots of people including my lovely female GP, a friend of a friend who had the double mastectomy and DIEP flap reconstruction and also ladies on here and on the private choosing breast reconstruction group on here (you may wish you join.)
Once I made the decision to “ go the double” I felt a huge sense of relief and had the surgery in August last year .
I am very happy with my decision.
But as my surgeon said , it’s extremely personal and only you can make the decision.
I had my surgery in the private system and even though I had private health insurance my out of pockets were steep.
I don’t regret it one bit though and figure I haven’t spent much on holidays since the advent of Covid, so why not spend it on this?
Hope that is of some assistance.
Take care.🌺
This is the $60 million question!
I am a 63 year old (62 when diagnosed) and went from talk of a lumpectomy to a mastectomy ( my tumour was initially thought to be 4.5 cm but turned out to be 5.5 cm and lobular which is more like a spider web than a neat lump) and then to discussion about a double mastectomy.
At first I thought “why get rid of a perfectly healthy breast “ especially as I did not have any genetic predisposition to breast cancer.
My breast cancer surgeon said there was an approx 10 percent chance of me getting breast cancer in the other breast and asked “ how risk averse are you”?
The answer was “ very”.
I am the sort of person who always pays extra to get no excess on the insurance policy when I hire a car.
An added factor for me was I wanted to have the DIEP flap reconstruction ( where you use your tummy fat) and you can only do that once .
I stressed a lot about the decision and talked to lots of people including my lovely female GP, a friend of a friend who had the double mastectomy and DIEP flap reconstruction and also ladies on here and on the private choosing breast reconstruction group on here (you may wish you join.)
Once I made the decision to “ go the double” I felt a huge sense of relief and had the surgery in August last year .
I am very happy with my decision.
But as my surgeon said , it’s extremely personal and only you can make the decision.
I had my surgery in the private system and even though I had private health insurance my out of pockets were steep.
I don’t regret it one bit though and figure I haven’t spent much on holidays since the advent of Covid, so why not spend it on this?
Hope that is of some assistance.
Take care.🌺