Breast reconstruction...after 10 years

Mary1980

Hello, Ladies:

It's been 7.5 years. I am now considering breast reconstruction.

At the beginning of my journey, I had a bad experience with an oncologist, who put me through chemotherapy, although it has been establilshed that my type of tumor (ER+, PR+, HER-) does not benefit from chemotherapy.

Also: I used to go for my mammogram "religiously" every year, but it never saw anything coming!

I changed my lifestyle immediately after being diagnosed. Started eating organic, tried to work out regularly, read breastcancer.org regularly and got a wealth of information on supplements, etc...I turned down Tamoxifen and AIs, to my doctor's greatest despair, of course.

In the end, I decided not to see anymore oncologists, because they kept trying to "put me back on track" which for them means: scans, mammos (TWO a year for the 1st 5 years, although mammo never helped me before!), and of course medication; that's what they know. If I had done it their way, I would have at least 15-18 scans and mammos under my belt right now (having dense breasts, they keep re-doing and re-doing my mammos to "see"  more clearly......and OF COURSE, they keep saying: "don't worry, it's VERY little radiation"). I, for one, suspect yearly mammos of being partially responsible for my cancer.

They would also be claiming that I am surviving so far because of these "preventive" measures ...

In the past 2 months, I have had a physical with my integrative Primary Care Physician; I also had a pap smear, a mammo (on the one breast that I was not operated on), a colonoscopy, and a Myocardial Perfusion Imaging by my cardiologist. Not to mention my yearly visits to my dentist and eye doctor (yes, cancer can be found that way, too). 

I went to the cardilogist for heart palpitations that I wanted checked....

......But (because I am well-insured?) he put me through a holter monitor surveillance session (48 hours), even though I had already had an EKG; THEN a stress test (during which the nurse started me very high and very fast on the treadmill, and also had me talk, talk, talk, the whole time). Anyway: I ended up with "abnormal" stress test results, and instead of repeating this stress test, the cardiologist put me through a Myocardial Perfusion Imaging, which came back just fine. So: this toxic, expensive procedure was actually for nothing. But he still put me through ANOTHER EKG, which I had to accept, because my prospective reconstructive surgeon needed me cleared by a cardiologist before surgery, which I can understand.

Now: I have given all these tests/visits results to my prospective plastic surgeon (mammo, pap smear, colonoscopy, cardiology report, multiple blood works, dental, eyes checkups...........).

Of course, my surgeon will get more specific blood works from me before surgery...My surgeon will also send tissue samples to the lab for analysis/biopsy after surgery.

A friend of mined thinks that, even though I have done this very thorough check-ups in the past 2 months, with these extensive lab works, my surgeon should still demand that I get clearance from an oncologist before surgery. My experience is that oncologists rarely find tumors themselves; they more often depend on other specialists for additional testing, and considering my thorough check-ups this year, the only additional test I can see an oncologist requesting would be a SCAN (toxicity and all).

I feel I have conducted a large amount of due diligence, with all these checkups (including the myocardial, which my cardiologist should not evn have done). Besides, turmor markers are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable, and since the beginning of my cancer journey, I have seen people being very much let down by scans as well.

What do you ladies think? (about the fact that my surgeon is not requesting clearance from an onc before my surgery). Thank you.

Mini1

Well, I'm a newbie to all this cancer biz, but I've chosen a track similar to yours as far as treatment goes. I think you've done your due diligence. Has your friend had BC? If not,  they probably don't have a full appreciation of the MO patient relationship of most of us have. Unless you're very lucky, you're MO is usually cancer-centric and often subjects you to things like xrays that increase (or cause) cancer risks. I had what I believe to be an unnecessary CT scan because of my tumor markers being off. If my MO had been looking at the bigger picture he would have realized that my markers were off due to a condition unrelated to my cancer. Anyway, ultimately, you are the one that has to live with your decision and if you're comfortable with the steps you've taken and decisions you've made, then let your friiend know that you appreciate that they care about you, but what you need from them now is their support as you take this next step in your journey.