I am currently going through chemo and after I am done with my treatments I will need to get a mastectomy. My journey started out as having dcis and would need a lumpectomy and radiation and then on the road to recovery. Unfortunately that diagnoses changed over the last couple of months. I have since had a lumpectomy and sentinel lymph nodes removed (5all negative). But no clear margin, which brought me back in for a second surgery to get the clear margin with an another lumpectomy (invasive has a clear margin but dcis does not). But they are unable to get a clear margin with 9cm removed and so now after those two surgeries and chemo I will be getting a bilateral mastectomy with an immediate reconstruction. I am worried about how my breast will feel to me after the surgery. Will it feel like “my” breasts or is it going to feel like I have 2 foreign objects attached where they shouldn’t be. I am doing everything I can to make sure that this does not come back again but I want to feel like myself once it is done as well. Any insight on if I am going to feel somewhat whole after this is done would be appreciated. I hav meet with the plastic surgeon and because of my size my only option is silicon as I do not have enough body mass for other options.
Gosh. That’s an impossible question to answer because it depends on you. I can tell you that surgery can be very good and that your breasts can look great. Like what they were before? Not likely. But you will also probably look fine in your clothes, be able to find bras that work even if some effort has to go into that, and that the pain can be controlled to the point that it isn’t that bothersome. But you will have scars, you won’t have as much feeling and you may not have any, and it will look different. If you’re someone that can easily get past that then yes, it can feel like your new body and you’ll be fine with it. I had a DIEP. I have a scar from hip to hip and because they took my nipples, I have some noticeable scars on my new breasts, too. They are round, not tear shaped, with some small dimples since I didn’t want fat grafting. Do they look normal? Not exactly. Do they look fine to me? Yep. I like them better than my home grown ones because they’re much smaller, more proportional with the rest of my body, and although I’ve lost about 85% of my feeling I don’t particularly care. They look fantastic in clothes and my cleavage is superb. The hip scar bothers me more because I don’t have feeling there and it’s rather lumpy in parts. That’s a hard incision to heal and may take a year or more to flatten out and look more normal. But all in all I’m happy. My scars are a sign of what I’ve overcome. So in saying that, attitude means a lot. If you decide you’re going to do everything possible to feel comfortable and have the belief that feeling comfortable is possible the chances are very high that’s exactly what you will achieve. Good luck!
Thank you for the response. I appreciate you taking the time on telling me how you are feeling about the whole process. I agree I am not a vein person and the scars will not bother me, I am more worried about the feeling of the implants inside me and things like laying down (I am a stomach sleeper) or lol having to wear a bra from now on. I am planning to get mastectomy tattoos once this is all done which will make me happy with the look I think (cannot be sure until I have the surgery) but the feeling of the implants inside is something that is making me very very nervous.
Yeah I get that. To be frank it’s why I leaned towards a diep. I will say from what I’ve read I don’t think you can sleep on your stomach with implants. But you can on your side. And it seems most people like them fine.