Reconstruction options, removal options....feeling overwhelmed.

Hi everyone,

It’s been a year since I posted. This time last year, I’d just had me second round of chemo and, with seemingly endless complications, I stopped talking on here and reading posts. I felt like it was enough to just get through a day, and didn’t want to talk any more…

Anyway, a year later, post chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and very much used to life on hormone treatment - osteoporosis is a bit of a pain (literally!) - I’m thinking about reconstruction for the first time.

I am beginning to see that, while it was way down the priority list last year, I’m struggling with my body. I wear a silicone prosthetic but can’t look at myself naked. And it’s not so much the scar, it never has been, it’s looking at a healthy remaining breast and wishing it was gone so I could at least be equal, but also seeing it as a constant reminder of what used to be on the other side, and source of ongoing anxiety with what could (but probably won’t) happen to it. I want it gone too. So much. I feel like I’d feel more human with them both gone, I could start again with no visual reminders and, maybe, think about reconstruction with a the aim of a different size to before. A new me, that looks different and is symmetrical!

I think I need to talk again to others who might get where I’m coming from, or might have been there and settled on a permanent solution to live with. 

Sorry to ramble. I just feel overwhelmed!

Hi Helenbumblebee

 

This is exactly how I feel. I asked for my other breast to be removed at the same time as the mastectomy and the consultant said ‘we don’t do this here.’ I am fearful that breast cancer will come back into my right breast and I can not bear to look at myself in the mirror at my scar as that too is a reminder of what I went through last summer. 

I have to wait now until a year after radiotherapy (November) to be considered to have a reconstructed. Seems such a long time to wait. 

It is not surprising you are feeling overwhelmed with it all xx