Miss Lea

Hi Lea, this is a very tricky situation, and it is good that you can help your mum through this time. I have had a double mastectomy, and have no regrets what so ever. I am 53 with 4 adult children. My cancer was not found on mammogram, and when discovered they thought it was low grade and 4mm. What they found was a high grade 3, and 21mm. I had a lumpectomy first, and a clear sentinel node biopsy. Margins were clear, but not large, so I was faced with, another lumpectomy or mastectomy, and more lymph nodes out, just to be sure the cancer hadn't jumped the sentinel node. I chose the latter as I wouldn't need radiotherapy, but still required chemo. As this was right on Christmas 2010,( I came out of hospital on Christmas morning), I couldn't start recon as it is too hard to find a plastic surgeon at Christmas. After chemo and hair loss, I started to think about reconstruction, and the possibility of having a second cancer down the track. I have met so many woman who some years down the track develop a second cancer in the same breast or the other breast. This started to concern me, and I really didn't want to do the cancer thing again. My daughter who was 22 at the time said, you don't know what caused this cancer, so you don't know what to do differently to prevent a new one from developing. With no breast cancer in my family, and me being low risk on every level, here I was with breast cancer that didn't even show up on a mammogram. I was always going to have trouble trusting a mammogram in the future. 4 months ago after much research, I went back and had a precautionary mastectomy and insertion of bilateral tissue expanders. I am only small busted, 14B , so I was a good candidate for this type of reconstruction. I have now had my expanders removed and new silicone implants put in, and I am very happy with the results. I haven't had nipples applied yet, but this is something you can do months down the track when everything settles down. Everything is still numb, but my plastic surgeon says about 2/3 of people will get skin feeling back. ( not sexual). So, for your mum, faced with this problem, she is in a good position, being only stage 1. If she chose a double mastectomy and knows she doesn't need lymph nodes removed, she may well only have a small scar line. Sometimes they can even preserve the nipple. My scars are long, 20 and 21cms long, but for early stage one, they should be much smaller. Check out breast reconstruction on google images. Te best results seem to be when done at the same time as the mastectomy. If this early intervention negates the use of hormone treatment, then she is lucky. I have been on tamoxifen for 4 months, (ok), and now on an anti oestrogen called femara, and it is awful. I need to be on it for 5 to 10 years, and after 6 months I feel like an old lady. My knees ankles hips and fingers are so stiff. I hobble when I first get up out of a chair for a minute or so, and turning over in bed wakes me up. My fingers are so stiff that I can't make a fist properly, and that seems to be getting worse with time. Only your mum can make this decision, and we are all different. All I can say, is that I do not have any regrets, and having 2 boobs that look alike is better for me than only one breast, or 2 that don't match. All the best with your mum, and I hope she can find the decision that works best for her. Love Chris xx