Hi! I've got so many questions

Hi Cass Sorry to hear about your sister. I was diagnosed with breast cancer just over 12mths ago. I'm happy to share my experiences with you and hopefully they can answer so of your questions..... I have private health insurance and I have found my out of pocket expenses to be quiet minimal (I think I'm probably out of pocket less than $2000) I had a lumpectomy, mastectomy, chemo and radio..... When you go for surgery ask the anaesthesiologist to see if they will bulk bill. My hospital also did the chemo as an inpatient service so my private health cover covered this, I decided to go radio through the public jsystem and so this was all bulk billed.... For me the private system was great, had my own room in hospital and where I had the chem down was in a very in hospital like environment ( like a little cottage) if I had my time again I would chose exactly the same...I went to the mater hospital in Sydney and I couldn't give it a more glowing recommendation. I had lymph nodes removed but not many, I have had no side effects from this and from my point if view my surgeon felt it best that I do this to reduce the risk of it spreading so I followed her advice. Being young and fit will help her a lot in this process. I have currently got a tissue expander in at the moment, I'm going in next month to get my right breast removed (no cancer just a personal choice) and in December I will go back in, get the expanders removed and implants put in. My surgeon has done an amazing job and once again if I had my time again I wouldn't change anything. I think for me personally to have no reconstruction done and just have my breast removed would be very difficult to deal with....my reconstruction was done at the time of surgery, did the mastectomy and put the expander in at the same time...healed in two weeks and I was back at work. In regards to fertility for me, my biggest concern was getting rid of the cancer so I didn't want to prolong the treatment to harvest eggs. There is still a chance I will be able to have kids as the treatment didn't put me into early menopause....I will worry about kids when this is all over, my sister has also offered an egg donation if I have difficulty falling pregnant. Like I said for me getting rid of the cancer was my main priority. Yes with the chemo you will probably lose your hair on the upside you also loss your leg hair, under arm hair and pubic hair so no more waxing or shaving for a while!! For me once again losing my hair wasn't as bad as I thought, most days I just walked around bald... A lot of people do look at you and asked if I did shave for a cure but I didn't mind talking about and on the days I couldn't be bothered with people looking at me I wore a wig and with the wig people don't know at all... I went to the individual wig in Sydney and spent around $700 on 2 wigs, they were very natural looking and were comfy but as I said I did embrace my baldness and so didn't always wear them mainly for work etc... At the end of the day for me, it was hair it does grow back and I luckily had a well rounded head...my hair is now growing back and I think back to maybe shaving it off again...so much easier!! Lol.....my boyfriend has other ideas!! Your sister will find a lot of inner strength and she will surprise herself at how well she copes! She will have some down days where she hates what's happening but try not to get stuck to long in those feelings. For me I did t sit round asking why me...I did it, kept working only taking small amounts of time off and surrounding myself by people that care for me. It's a tough time but I'm out the other side and back to normal as far as my life prior to cancer. My mum refered to my cancer as an unwanted house guest which is pretty true... Anyway I hope some of this was helpful to you....if your sister wants I'm more than happy to show her pictures of what my reconstruction looks like. And if she has any other questions or wants to talk just get her to message me. Protect t yourselves from info over load, there is a lot of info out there which can be very over whelming, hopefully you have good doctors around and this network has great resources also. Anyway good luck with it all and feel free to get in contact if you want to chat anymore. Anna