I’m 43 yrs old, work full time as a Health Care Professional, have Type 2 diabetes and I have an extremely active 2.5 yr old. I had a WLE & SLNB on 22nd Dec and results were not good, tumour was very much larger than could be seen on Mammogram or MRI, multifocal and margins not clear on 2 sides. I’ve struggled so much with breast cancer treatment options and after much research, crying and discussions with nurse, surgeon & oncologist we eventually decided on bilateral mastectomy with pedicaled TRAM flap reconstruction. Really scared but knew it was the right decision for me - was recieving Counselling for depression, anxiety, PTSD and grief before I was diagnosed and added in Hypnotherapy to help cope with the cancer on top of everything else.
Got a call to see my surgeon yest, thought it was just for a date, which it was 8th March, BUT…
had discussed my case in MDT again last Wed, and a room full of people who have never met me and only know me through my medical notes have decided that I CAN’T have the surgery my surgeon thinks is best for me as a whole person.
I now have til Wed 2nd 3.30pm to decide between - straight to implants (lots of bad comments about feeling cold, hard and unnatural on forums), Goldilocks procedure (don’t know much about this and have large boobs - 38G - although want to go down to a D/DD and app only good for small boobs) and LD flap with fat grafting, which was told I had too tight skin on my back for this in initial discussions.
There is also another BUT… my case is being discussed again Wed morning where my surgeon will present these 3 options but they may still say I can’t have a bilateral mastectomy, even though I will need reduction surgery to my non-affected breast in a separate operation at a later date.
If anyone has any experience of these 3 options, good, bad, successful, failed, ANYTHING that will help make this a bit easier for me please