Really struggling with needing mastectomy
I have really been agonising over needing a mastectomy. I just feel horrified that they want to cut my breasts off and wonder how I will accept and deal with lookiing down to see no breasts. I have had really huge boobs all my life and 9 years ago finally had a reduction. Went from F/G cup to D. I have liked the size of my boobs for the first time since I was 14 yrs of age. So now the irony of getting them completely chopped off. But how do you deal with having no boobs? I'm really quite terrified. I know I have to do it to get rid of the damn cancer. But I guess it's also because I have never felt sick, unwell or anything. Just found a lump. I feel completely fine. So even I guess just accepting that I really DO have breast cancer? And I really DO need to treat it....is tough. I've had terrible complications from Chemo and been very sick. Heart failure and heart block and got a Defib implanted...that all seems way more real then the actual breast cancer. Now I have to face having the mastectomy. Not sure what I'm looking for here...just wanting to spill perhaps? Thanks all.
mastectomy scar pain
i had a malignant Phylliodes tumour removed with mastectomy on june 4 this year, they also took lymph nodes. recovery has gone well so far but in the past 2 weeks I have been having pain along the scar. hurts to bend or roll over, its Ok while standing. Ive had an ultrasound, which shows nothing and now am on anti inflamms. anyone else had this issue? and what was the result? thanksI want a double M
So I've only just been diagnosed, haven't seen a surgeon yet, but was told I'd probably be offered a single mastectomy. Thing is, I want a double. For more than one reason. I don't want to have to worry about the other one or take medication. My grandmother got breast cancer early (in her 30s), had a single M, then got it in the other one decades later and died. Also, I don't want to be lopsided. I'd feel like a freak with only one. I want to go flat. I'm in the public system so I'm assuming I won't get a choice? Any advice? This is of course assuming I get surgery and am not metastatic, which I don't know yet.
Compass (ABC) The Breast Decision - NOW - should be on iView soon
Sun 18th May - Compass: The Breast Decision - now available to watch on ABC iView https://iview.abc.net.au/video/RN2411H008S00 BCNA was 'shown' in one segment. Charlotte Tottman is interviewed re her own decision on choosing to go flat and how her breasts were very important in her sex life with her husband - but they'd 'done their job' on raising her 4 children .... Yes, She misses them - but in her words, she looks in the mirror every morning for 5 secs and says she 'is not too shabby'. She encourages women to look at themselves every day for 5 secs - and to also share their scars with their partners & even their children, so that they are 'a part' of the recovery.
Take a seat, Lois.
THANK YOU for all the absolutely beautiful messages of support and encouragement that you all sent to me regarding my post "tears in the dark". I know it was a pretty profound bit of writing that may have stirred up some memories or given some, the shivers and shakes of what is to come. One thing, I have discovered from being a prolific reader is - sometimes, you just need to close the page and let the unknown be exactly that - the unknown. I had been amassing information in preparation for probabilities, outcomes, goals to achieve, resilience measures and trying to prepare myself armed with a million different weapons mentally - when in fact, I should of just stood quietly and actually let myself "feel". That was something I had not allowed myself to do since the diagnosis in February. I had just stopped 'feeling'. I didnt want to feel the utter terror, the fear of losing what I had around me, within me and the potential of the future. I realised the wall I had built around me was a protection against the continuous onslaught of what if's, maybes, could be's, never going to happens and the inevitable - will I ever breath slowly again? I had been warned repeatedly that my 'matter of fact' behaviour was disconcerting to the nurses and doctors and I know they were waiting for the meltdown that would inevitably come. Which of course it did. Thank Goodness!!!! it was a bloody relief and yes, I can now slowly breathe slowly again. This week, I woke with a new found sense of confidence. Wonder Woman was still having a nice holiday on a tropical Island but Lois, ME, had been walked freely from my self imposed cage and I walked confidently into the Inner Sanctum with a sense of purpose, happiness and each day, each week that will come means one step closer to whatever will unfold and I do not need to be full of fear but merely acceptance that there may be hiccups, milestones to tick off and of course that time when life will not be full of endless maybe's, could be, hope-not's and the rest of the shit we all tolerate. I can report this week, no reactions occurred and I finished my 2nd treatment with a smile, a happiness of my soul and dare I say - relief that for once I have NOT opened up any books, websites or research to arm myself once again. It is merely what will be will be. I took the same seat like last week, placed my arm out for the needle and contently sat back and spent my time chatting, eating the delicious lunch supplied and thinking quietly that all of us within that room, had inevitably become historians of our own destiny and we were all free to guide it to the best of our abilities - one day at a time. To those who have championed themselves through the days, weeks, months and years - I am in pure awe of you. Truly, in awe. YOU INSPIRE ME. My admiration for your resilience and encouragement that one day the endless hospital appointments, surgeries, specialists will soon fade to merely living life as it comes - living life to its fullest, is an incentive to breathe slowly, relax and acknowledge this is just a bump not a endless road to nowhere. To those who have like me, just begun the bumpy road - WE WILL ENDURE. WE WILL FIGHT. WE WILL BREATHE!!! As to what song has been playing through my head - Pearl Jam "Alive". Why - because I am still Alive!!!!!! That is the feeling, I had locked away, way back in February! I AM STILL ALIVE - I am NOT a walking death sentence! Oh, I, oh, I'm still alive Hey, I, oh, I'm still alive Hey, I, oh, I'm still alive, hey, oh. Big Hugs, Lois.
Tattooing over mastectomy scar
Hi ladies, just wondering if any of you have had a tattoo over your mastectomy scar. It's something I would like to do but I'm keen to hear from anyone who can tell me what it was like. I recently got my first ever tattoo on my forearm and didn't think it was painful at all. Just putting it out there in the hope someone has done it. Thanks Lisa