Rock and a Hard Place....
Hmmmm, feeling kind of lost as I head into the abyss of the next chapter. All I know is that I do not want to be permanently without a right breast, however I have deep reservations about the outcome of surgery to expectation/satisfaction ratio. My plastic surgeon, while he seemed qualified and knowledgeable and pleasant, told me he could not really tell me how my breasts will look after surgery. He cannot garuntee symmetry on both sides, and seemed reluctant to really give any reassurance about whether I would be satified with the outcome or not. He showed me two photos of before and after patients of his. One seemed pretty good, the other was concerning. Hmmm, doesn't quite give me the confidence to leap straight in and go through the months of discomfort and emptying of my wallet for something that I might feel disappointed with in the long term. I know not to expect fabulous breasts after a mastectomy, afterall I am sans a nipple to start with, but I at least wish to feel an increase in body confidence. If I felt, after surgery, in the same place as I do currently about my appearance, or God forbid, worse, I would be in a very dark place indeed.
So, these were the options given to 39 year old me - expanders followed by implant (and maybe some augmentation of the left breast to even things up, they are very small A cups after three children) OR, lat dorsi (which, I have to be honest, doesn't appeal). I really do not wish to look like my breasts are plastic, any larger than a B cup or completely unnatural (I understand the lat dorsi creates more of a natural look), and I don't want a breast that just looks and feels out of place and not ME, but I also do not want lopsided breasts either. I guess I'm taking time to think it through.... I just keep coming back to thinking I'm between a rock and a hard place, and I'm left feeling sorry for myself. A far cry from the positive person a few months back who was just ecstatic to have had the luck of picking up I had cancer in time before it spread to lymph nodes and then promptly nipping it in the bud. Now I'm feeling angry and annoyed and resentful that I'm left on what seems like a bit of a precipice, dangling over the edge and not wanting to stay and not wanting to jump. Shit. Just don't want to be dealing with any of this. Feel like a bit of a drama queen but I totally get why people take years and years before receiving reconstruction. Any sage advice would be very helpful. Anyone had a reconstruction in Hobart, Tasmania per chance? Anyone had expanders and implant on the missing side plus augmentation in the other small droopy one? What was the outcome for you? Anyone regret having had reconstruction? I need some confidence that reconstruction is the way to go because I so want it to be but I'm so unsure right now.... hmph.
