MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

Lisa Marie welcome to the middies.  sorry you had to make it here but it is a great bunch of ladies.  Sounds like your BS is a nightmare.  I would get another BS after this post op appointment but I don't think it is true that another BS would not touch another ones work.  Through this journey I have switched BS's and MO's and am much happier with my team now than before.

Dianarose-the fat grafting is basically lipo from a harvest area to your breast.  From what I have heard and read not 100% of it remains so they usually overfill it when they do it.  As for the TE's.  I have been under the impression that if you go smaller you can skip the TE, but I  don't know of anyone that has stayed the same size or larger and be able to skip the TE.  I may be wrong about that and there is a thread on here regarding immediate implants.  I'll try to find it and post it in a bit for you.  My first BS did  not give me all my options either.  Not that she did not do all of it she is just very opinionated and only told me what she thought I should do instead of me making the decision.  So after another scare in the other breast I am now moving forward with the BMX, but the PS made me wait one year for healing of the rads side.  If you decide to do MX and recon on your radiated side you should do pretty well since it has been so long ago for the radiation.  They say the longer out you are the better for healing with recon.

Sorry those were so big I tried to make them smaller and it did not work

Diana Rose here is the other thread I was talking about, I hope the link works

Nipple Sparing Matectomy with immediate reconstuction

Sherry, the BIGGER the better!!! What a couple of DOLLS!!!!!

Lisamarie, I had a doctor not want to help me with a seroma because "it was another doctor's work". I also had a bleed out from a revision and a walk-in clinic doc didn't want to help me. I "assured" her I wouldn't tell, would she just please stop the bleeding!!! Sheesh!!

cute babies ... I have a 17month old granddaughter and I love her so much .. bless you and the babies .. today I was told that excision confirmed the LCIS and she said there is a chance it can be in the other one as well... and she said its a high risk .. she gave me a choice of tamoxifen and monitoring or PBMX with immediate recon as she said I will be an excellent candidate .. for some reason she was a lot more compassionate and helpful today , she said to take my time making the decision and let her know .. I ask if i do PBMX then im 100 % okay and she said nothing is 100 % but its leaning towards a 0 chance .. I told her I am full of anxiety and stress and cannot keep getting biopsies and tests and keep waiting .. so I am going to Vegas on the 18th to see my mom and I think I am going with the PBMX because I cannot take the stress of this and I will know I did everything I can do and I will feel better about it .. I just want to say thank you all so much for talking with me

GREAT news peacock!! A MUCH better visit.

lisamarie, I had both breasts taken off. It doesn't change the mortality factor, but I was sick of biopsies and lumpectomies (I'd had 5!!), so I was SO done with my breasts. I didn't do recon.

Kay no they are fraternal twins.  One has light hair and the other dark hair so if it stays that way they will be easy to tell apart.  So far though Bella looks like her big sisiter Berkley.  We have not figured Faryn out yet. 

Thanks for all the well wishes on my new granddaughters, I just wished I lived closer to help take care of them.  I was lucky when Berkley was born I was not working and the kids lived here.  My DIL was in law school so I had Berkley full time and loved it, and we have a very special bond.

Hi Ladies - Just found this thread.  I'm 51 years old and was first diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 43.  I had a R mx, reconstruction with TE and CMF chemo, 5 years of tamoxifen and then Femara for a year.  This past summer I found a lump on the side of my mastectomy and was diagnosed with a recurrence.  I had a lumpectomy and axillary node dissection (16 nodes) because they couldn't do another sentinal node due to my previous surgery.  My nodes were negative, yeah!  I've gone through 4 rounds of AC (yuk) and now am going in today for my 4th Taxol/Herceptin.  Thankfully, so far, T/H is much, much better than AC.  I'll be doing rads at some point also.   I'm taking B-complex and L-glutamine and no neuropathy so far, just a bunch of constipation.  Anyway, nice to meet you all!  Have a great day!!

Elimar - My BS told me that they can only get 90-95% of breast tissue when they do a mastectomy (never heard that before).  She likened it to trying to get all of the fat off a chicken breast, that it's really impossible to get every bit of breast tissue.  Sooo, I asked her why don't they do mammograms on the MX side (which they did in Florida where I was first diagnosed) and she said it was due to "cost effectiveness" (insurance companies) and that it's so rare to get a recurrence  on a MX side that they just do them...ergh...

I'd add to dechi's post--mammograms don't get the areas where breast tissue is left after a mast--up near the collar bone, around under the arm pit.  Mammos just don't get those areas.  Not a good idea to expose already traumatized tissue to radiation that isn't even going to look at the problem areas, after all.  Statistically, mammos suck at finding bc after a mammo.  A doctor's  fingers are far better. 

Native Mainer- you are so right about Maine being behind the rest of the country. Even Maine Med only had 2 ps that they deal with and one I didn't like and the other was cash only.

When I had my intitial mammo 2 spots showed up, one a white spot and the other calcifications. They tried to do markings for over 2 hours to biopsy the white area and couldn't so they sent me for an MRI. Thank GOD they did, because those 2 spots didn't show up on the MRI, a different are did that was deep. I had an mri guided biopsy and that is the one that is IDC. If they could have gotten to the intitial spot and it was b9 I would have thought I was fine. I am not excited that they found cancer, but glad they did. A Love-Hate relationship with that one. They are going to biopsy the calcifications next week. Not looking forward to that.

I haven't heard much about laser surgery for bc, I have heard of it becoming more popular for other kinds of surgery, especially cosmetic or reconstruction.  I think we'll be hearing more about laser surgery as time goes by. 

49.6 at my place, central Maine.  Not taking the down comforter off the bed for a while yet!  When laser surgery is the norm it might be available here in Maine about 10 years later.  I had a PS consult in southern Maine, was not impressed with the dingy  office building and old furniture in the waiting room.  Not to mention how hard it was to find the place.  I know we're not supposed to juge things by appearance, but sometimes clean makes a difference!