Concerns about choices and advice needed

lidabit

hello all,

35 y/o and just found out 1 week ago I have a 2.5 cm grade 2 ductal carcinoma and a 4 cm DCIS INTERMEDIATE grade in my right breast ER + PR + HER2 positive found by core biopsies. My general surgeon recommends a simple mastectomy with SNB and a Port placement. I am currently scheduled for Friday(tomorrow) but feeling a little overwhelmed. My family /friends are concerned this is too soon and I should get a second opinion. With a multifocal disease, I can't imagine anyone recommending a lumpectomy. I might be a candidate for neoadjuvant treatment , but that. Scares me. I am confident in my surgeon, but also worry this is too soon.

Anonymous

Hi, I know you hate to be here, but these discussion boards are truly helpful in making informed decisions.

I remember being "rushed" into feeling like I should have an immediate BMX by my general surgeon (the same day he read my pathology report to me! He said he could do a BMX in a week!).

There is value in waiting. You can research surgeons, reconstruction methods (if that's what you want), etc. And often women will wait to move toward a MX/BMX until after chemo, when it's possible chemo will shrink the tumors down so they are better contained in any surgery you may choose. It's also impossible to see if you will even respond to chemo if the tumors are removed before chemo. You can't measure the response without them.

I know my first reaction was "OMG, get this stuff out of me as soon as possible!" but I decided to move forward with chemo and rads (I already had a lumpectomy/exicisional biopsy that confirmed the little c) first, then decide whether I wanted my "girls", who had turned bad on me, gone forever.

Ultimately you can see in my signature line I did have a BMX with immediate recon (no expanders, flaps, etc) 1+ year after I finished rads. The surgery was truly a non-event and I hardly remember it, it was so easy to recover from.

I chose this route because I learned that dense breasts (mine) hide problems, and that the c I had (ILC) hides from scans more than any other type of bc. So weighing that knowledge, I decided I didn't ever want to worry that future mammos would miss any problem, as they did for 5 years before I was dx.

Hope that helps...more members will have a lot to share, I think.

Hugs.

Claire