Need Opinions and Advice

Hi LadyGrey the only questions I would ask myself in your position is what is going to give me the best peace of mind and how would I feel either not having any breasts or reconstructed breasts.  If it were me, I would have the mastectomy for full peace of mind.

Love n hugs.  Chrissy

You'll no doubt get a wide range of input, and in the end only you will know what's best for you.  I see that you're less than 2 years from your dx, and, personally, I know my fear of a possible recurrence or contralateral bc was pretty high for probably a year or more after tx ended, but has lessened a lot in the past year.  Not that those can't happen to any of us, but if I was in your position, knowing what I do now about the fear hopefully ebbing as you go forward, I would wait and see how you feel in a few months.  And while I am well aware that diet modifications, exercise, supplements, stress reduction and other natural things we can do won't absolutely ensure a bc-free future, many of those things have a scientific base, so might give you added peace of mind if you were to incorporate them (if you're not already).

You can always go for the BMX if the fear continues, but you can't undo it once it's done.  And unless you're a complete emotional wreck worrying about it, if you wait and decide to do it in the future (since it's not an urgency), perhaps in that time there will be some newer reconstruction advances. 

Just my thoughts on it.   Deanna 

I had DCIS and after reveiwing all my tx options (do nothing, radiation, radiation w tamox, unilateral mast, bilateral mast) I opted for the bilateral mastectomy. For ME this made sense. It took me MUCH soul searching to come to the decision and I flip-flopped a lot while I was deciding.

The surgery is not to be taken lightly, it is anesthesia, it is pain, its at least a day or more in the hospital and a significant recovery period. I am two weeks out as of today, and I just got the last drain removed. I feel like my chest is wrapped in a tight band. 

You have to be prepared psychologically for what it looks like. You have to decide if you are ready to commit to reconstruction with fills etc. or if you are ready to live your life with no breasts. These are not decisions to make lightly or under duress. They are intensely personal decisions.

There are a lot of factors that come into play making this decision. NO ONE can tell you what to do. I sure wished someone would tell me what to do, but after I came to my decision and the resultant peace of mind, I realized that if anyone had told me what to do, I probably wouldn't have listened anyway because it is such an intensely personal decision.

The only advice I would give would be to look into the option of having your surgery postponed until after your trip. It is very possible that you are feeling the crunch to get the surgery done before you travel and that is somehow contributing to your confusion/indecision. This is a huge decision and one that should never be made in haste if at all possible. Now obviously if you need to have the surgery right away then by all means have it! But if you are given the clearance by your doc to take extra time to decide, then that may be something you want to consider doing.

Ultimately, this will be your choice. I saw a rad-onc, a medical-onc, my breast surgeon, and a plastic surgeon and asked all of them to tell me what they could do for me, how they would treat me. It gave me the chance to see all options, from all angles. What each one said to me is that no matter what treatment option I chose, it would be the right one for me. 

They were right.