Before You Reclaim Your Curves

Hi Meg,

As you may be aware I am one of the volunteer Facilitators with the Breast Reconstruction group on this site and am one of the small team of volunteers who help with the Reclaim Your Curves website and private Facebook group. Like a number of the other ladies who have responded to your post, I , and my fellow Facilitators are solely concerned about women receiving the information they need to make the choices that are right for them in relation to reconstruction, including the choice not to reconstruct.

The Reclaim Your Curves website and Facebook group was established last year by Louise Turner, who also established the Breast Reconstruction group on this site. Having heard from many women over the past few years in the BCNA group that there was little detailed, practical information and support concerning reconstruction (other than the blog posts in the group itself), the decision was made to establish a consumer group that would work with health professionals to ensure women are educated about the various (and ever expanding) options concerning reconstruction and to connect and support women (through various platforms) as they go through what can often be a difficult and confusing time.

The Fact Sheets on the website about the various procedures include detailed information on the risks of these procedures, as well as information on pre and post surgery preparations, which reconstructions may suit some women better, expected recovery times and the stages of reconstruction. This information was sourced from a number of government and other trust worthy sites such as:

• Cancer Australia
• BCNA
• BreastCancer.org
• Better Health (Vic Govt)
• MacMillan Cancer Support
• Cancer Research UK

These references are listed at the bottom of each Fact Sheet. The Fact Sheets have also been reviewed by a specialist Plastic Surgeon to ensure the information is relevant to Australia. In addition, excerpts from Prof John Boyages book, Breast Cancer Taking Control, clearly state the risks and discusses the pros and cons of reconstruction.

You may also have missed the fact that Reclaim Your Curves is collaborating with a number of medical and health organisations, including BreastSurgANZ (the organisation that represents those breast surgeons and oncoplastic surgeons that manage around 90% of the women with early breast cancer in Australia and New Zealand). A growing number of these surgeons, as well as plastic surgeons and other health professionals refer their patients to the Reclaim Your Curves website as it is consumer-friendly. 

At the Awareness Event in Maitland, as Alison mentioned, one of our speakers was a lady who chose not to reconstruct, but unfortunately she was unable to make the recent Central Coast event. However, Louise did make reference to this choice during the evening and I seem to recall some applause then too when she spoke about being “flat and fabulous”. Perhaps not surprisingly however, given that the attendees had requested information on reconstruction, the main focus was on the different techniques available locally.

In relation to your comments about the statistics around reconstruction, you might be interested to read my interview (in the Conversations section on the website) with Prof Andrew Spillane, Chair of BreastSurgANZ and his views that there are major inequities in accessing reconstruction for many women in Australia due to lack of information and support from surgeons in some regions. This is the focus of a major research project for his colleague Dr Kathy Flitcroft. It is true that some women will simply not want to have reconstruction and that is absolutely OK, but not when the choice has been made for them.

While there are other issues in the post that I could comment on, such as reconstructive surgery not being considered  “cosmetic surgery”  (see Cancer Australia), my main message is that Reclaim Your Curves (which by the way is totally volunteer run with many hours and personal financial commitments made) is here to support women no matter what their decision is regarding reconstruction, and we fully respect and support those women who choose not to reconstruct and hope that for those of us who did choose reconstruction our choices can also be respected and supported. Cheers, Jane