*Our* Felicia - Featured in NY Times for BCO story!!

djd
djd Member Posts: 866
edited June 2014 in Life After Breast Cancer

Felicia - You look FANTASTIC!  And what a terrific article to be a part of!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/health/23beauty.html?_r=2&hp

Here's an excerpt from the article, but go to the link to read the whole thing:

Some Hidden Choices in Breast Reconstruction Susan Stava for The New York Times

Felicia Hodges, a publisher and karate enthusiast, was offered implants after a mastectomy. She later learned of other options.

  • By NATASHA SINGER Published: December 22, 2008

For many cancer patients undergoing mastectomies, reconstructive breast surgery can seem like a first step to reclaiming their bodies.

The Price of Beauty

An Informed Decision

This is the third in a series of articles examining the growing popularity and impact of medical treatments designed to improve appearances.

But even as promising new operations are gaining traction at academic medical centers, plastic surgeons often fail to tell patients about them. One reason is that not all surgeons have trained to perform the latest procedures. Another reason is money: some complex surgeries are less profitable for doctors and hospitals, so they have less of an incentive to offer them, doctors say.

"It is clear that many reconstruction patients are not being given the full picture of their options," said Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, a nonprofit group in Washington.

One patient, Felicia Hodges, a 41-year-old magazine publisher in Newburgh, N.Y., chose a double mastectomy after she was found to have cancer of the right breast in 2004. She consulted a plastic surgeon, who offered her only reconstruction with breast implants, she said.

Ms. Hodges chose implants filled with saline, a procedure for which more than a third of reconstruction patients underwent a follow-up operation, studies show.

Ms. Hodges developed wound-healing problems that required her surgeon to remove her right implant, and she was left with a concave chest with a quarter-size hole in it, she said; she described the experience as "worse than the mastectomy."

Then Ms. Hodges discovered a chat room on the patient-information Web site breastcancer.org, where women share detailed information about breast reconstruction beyond what they may have heard from their doctors.

Ms. Hodges learned of newer, more complex procedures that involve transplanting a wedge of fat and blood vessels from the abdomen or buttocks, which would be refashioned to form new breasts.

"It's unfortunate that a lot of general surgeons, breast surgeons and plastic surgeons don't mention it," said Ms. Hodges, who underwent one of the surgeries, known as a GAP flap, last year. A lifelong athlete and a karate enthusiast, she is now back at her dojo.

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