It's a year since I had my single mastectomy and immed recon by DIEP flap. I' m not sure if this helps anyone but I ended up with 8 specialist opinions....too many I think......I have two sisters with breast cancer, one died from it and the other has metastatic disease. Basically almost all the female specialist said have a double mastectomy ( one radiation onc, 3 oncologist), all the male specialists said lumpectomy and radiation ( 2 surgeons and one radiation onc). One female breast surgeon, said make a decision about the one breast and why not take tamoxifen for prevention in the other.... I hated the idea of radiation and double mastectomy seemed extreme...because it was precancerous...50 % chance of invasive cancer 50 % chance nothing would happen..... So I took what I thought was the middle road.
At skin and nipple sparing mastectomy found intermed grade DCIS, 2.5 cm but they found another spec of DCIS under the nipple so I lost the nipple too....
I insisted on having hormone tests on the tumour as I wanted to know if tamoxifen would have an affect and it was oestrogen and progesterone sensitive.
I still swing daily in my feelings towards this...was it an overreaction? As I will lose both of my sisters to breast cancer I think I made the right decision. I' m coping well with the tamoxifen, no major problems, few hot flushes and it should reduce the risk in the other breast by 50%. the recon in fine but it's not like having you own breast,,, it's a big numb lump that looks good in clothing , but still a bit freaky naked...lucky I have a great husband who tells me I look great. I have the final part of the recon . Next week actually.
