Not sure if I’m in the right category, but here goes.
Does anyone else who’s had a mastectomy with reconstruction struggle with their new body? I had a right side mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction with an implant (unusual), and left side reduction in August. I still need some work on the reconstruction shape, but my issues aren’t with the aesthetic, more with my feelings. Because a reconstruction remains numb and I have no sensation (or nipple) I feel like a lump of plasticine had been stuck to me that just gets in the way. My other boob is different to how it was before too so I have no comfort in still having what I had before, if that makes sense. I have a whopping great scar across my tummy too where the very little fat I had has been taken, and that is also numb! I miss the old me terribly and although I’m grateful the cancer has been removed, I didn’t choose this new body and each night when I massage my scars I feel so very sad and almost angry. I long to see and feel my old boobs, and I’m so scared that I’ll always feel like this. I’ve been so strong and positive throughout my diagnosis and treatment and everyone thinks I’ve coped really well. Apparently I’ve been ‘amazing’! Occasionally I can laugh about my new boob getting in the way, or not moving when I dance, but although I’m strong and a naturally bubbly person, inside I’m falling apart 
If anyone else has felt like this, do you have advice as to how I move on, or if these feelings will pass with time?
If you’ve managed to get to end of this lengthy ramble - thank you!
I have mixed feelings. I felt at 67 I was a bit too old to have the diep surgery but it did mean I woke up with a warm living breast as opposed to a flat area. It doesn’t feel like a breast though, and I have no nipple. I have also developed a dent in my upper breast area where they took away the breast tissue above where the diep reconstructed area is.
I have now been offered liposuction of my fat to fill this up. I asked where this would come from and found out this would be from fat on my hips. That resulted in me throwing my hands up in horror at the thought of more chopping about to harvest it, it will never look like the other one.
I also don’t want to have operation after operation thanks very much. I told the plastic surgeon to operate on people who like operations.
The upshot was that the Plastic Surgery Registrar who was present during the consultation wrote a letter to my GP, copied to me which read this pleasant lady had been seen in clinic.
It went on to say I was going to be put on the surgical list for the procedure I had said I didn’t want… I think he wrote this before he met me an hour after the time for the appointment. That’s based on him saying I was a pleasant lady which I dispute…
I looked him up and he’s battled across the ocean in a boat rowing across on his own. He has very high qualifications and is no doubt an excellent Registrar.
If I was 37 or 47 maybe I would maybe consider surgery but I had so many surgical allergies after surgery in 2003 and last time on 8 Sept 2022 that I fear more surgery.
I think my skin will itch and weep for weeks or months afterwards. I looked like a beetroot all over my chest for months after surgery last year and I was picking stitches out of my diep scar on Christmas Eve 2023. My body must have rejected the plastic in dissolvable stitches that is supposed to dissolve - which in my case did not happen.
As my surgery was nearly four months earlier, I have bad memories.
Seagulls
Thanks @Seagulls and I’m sorry to hear about all you’ve been through. I understand why you wouldn’t want any more surgical procedures. I sometimes wonder if I’d been better off going flat… because I didn’t have enough tummy tissue and I have quite large breasts, my plastic surgeon added a small implant with my tummy fat, so my recon is quite hard and isn’t warm and soft unfortunately. It’s also an odd shape currently and I’m waiting for corrective surgery to make it better. But as I say, it’s not the look of it that bothers me- it’s how it feels. Nothing can change that really, so I guess all I can do is hope that with time I’ll feel better about it and accept it as the new me. x
you are entitled to feel what you do and honestly I would have felt different if I was younger and had less confidence. I was single when I was first diagnosed in 2003. I was 48 then, I am now 68 and got married ten years ago, my first marriage and my husband’s third! I know now that how I look makes no difference to my husband. Whatever he was attracted to was my essence! So that’s going to be there for you too whatever your breasts. Having never had bigger breasts I don’t know how I would be, I didn’t like the results of my first surgery as the supposed breast conservation surgery looked bad and got infected. I went to see lots of other surgeons and they didn’t give me any hope of improvement. Oncoplastic surgery has improved a lot but I feel having op after op won’t sort me out! Especially as I have so many allergies now. But good luck to you. I am me and you have every right to think entirely differently from me. I don’t have the answer to anything, only my particular perspective on life. Cheers
Seagulls
Thank you - I like the idea of my essence still being there! My husband is very supportive and loves me for me, so I’m lucky in that respect too 
(though he always loved my breasts!) I literally just turned 50 when I was diagnosed - but I’ve always felt at least 10 years younger than my age - I’m a big kid, and just want to feel that young exuberance again - I’m sure it will return 
It is a very different feeling. At first, I felt like I had something strapped to my chest after my SMX straight to implant in March. Now although half of the breast is numb, it sometimes feels unnoticeable, and sometimes like a couple of fingers are holding across my chest. I imagine we just have to get used to the new sensations or lack thereof.
Thanks Cali. Good to know it sometimes feels unnoticeable for you now - I’m hoping that will eventually happen and not feel so alien all the time. x