Researching Breast Reconstruction

****Public Service Announcement – This one may not be for the squeamish****

Now that I can start to look at my options a bit more closely without being nearly as traumatized. I started to take the time to learn about breast reconstruction related to breast cancer (of course a variety of items with the type of surgery you choose – but I don’t think it hurts to know what the options look like). The first couple of websites that I looked at brought a few tears to my eyes. Maybe I will feel differently further in, but at the moment, I don’t want to walk away from this looking worse than I did walking in… That may be hoping for a bit much, but wow, I have to look at myself every day in the mirror… I have always considered augmentation as something I would do at one point in my life (when the girls started to move south, I figured I may give them a little put of a push northward…)

I know the surgeon and plastic surgeon will have recommendations for me on what route to take, but I don’t like walking into this without knowing what I am in for (and I will be much happier if it turns out to be much less than I anticipate). I have read a variety of extreme cases, extremely “easy” to extremely challenging. They do want you to know what you want as the end result before you decide on your surgery (although the surgery options are tattooed into my brain: lumpectomy no radiation 35% chance of recurrence same breast, lumpectomy plus radiation 10% chance recurrence same breast, mastectomy 5% chance of recurrence of cancer in the same breast).

Also, looking at my first related medical bill from the 30th (which of course goes to insurance before I need to figure the rest out) – did you know a biopsy costs more than your average boob job? I feel like there needs to be that “The More Your Know” rainbow should go across right here (obviously I grew up in the 80’s…). Oh wait, found it!

Do they still have these kinds of commercials anywhere?

I was recently reading Robyn’s blog about her adventures with breast cancer (if you can call it an “adventure,” my aunt coined the term, so it sticks for now), and Robyn made a statement about whether or not she will someday forget that she had cancer. It made me feel not alone, heck, this adventure has only begun and as much as I try not to think about it it is constantly there (unless I am incredibly consumed at work for a bit). Which lead to a discussion with my husband this evening, he says I am a bit of a workaholic. I was fretting about getting behind and work and he rolled his eyes telling me that getting me to slow down at work will be a battle that we will have in the upcoming months. We will see… (I think I may have told him that I asked work for a laptop that would be easier to cart to chemo…).

One thing to understand, I am trying to come at this experience as upbeat as possible, but not everything about it is upbeat or happy. It is what it is, and I will make the most of everything that I can..

Author: Mandi

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