Urgent Surgery advice

I won't try to give you advice (or surgeons as I'm in a different state) but as @FLClover said, radiation can affect outcomes.  My surgeon, who is quite respected for his outcomes, told me that as I would need radiation, he would not consider recon until he was satisfied that the skin and scar was good enough to proceed.  I had very little problem with radiation side effects and I only got the nod last December, 3 years after surgery - much longer than he thought it would take.  I'm also quite small but he has recommended that the best for be would be to take the tissue from the stomach.  I've chosen at this stage not to reconstruct.

I should say that I had ILC, which is sneaky, but to my limited knowledge, even with IDC they won't know for sure how big it is until they go in.  For me, I ended up with a beautiful lumpectomy only to have a mastectomy a week or so later - but that is lobular.  Do I regret the mastectomy?  I regret the need to have it but I don't regret the decision to excise any suspect tissue.

I can't answer your questions about future recons and I'm nowhere near expert enough to make judgements about the processes but if you're keeping the breast, aesthetics will be important I would think.  And be aware,  I doubt you will have much sensation from the nipple (though again, I could be wrong).

Good luck with whichever you choose.