Just diagnosed

CultivateGratitude, if you use the Search feature to the left and put in Lumpectomy vs. Mastectomy, it will pull up a recent thread by that name where several women weighed in on their choices, as well as an excellently laid-out rationale by BCO member, Beesie, that should be extremely helpful.  I'll bump that thread for you now, so that you can also find it under Active Topics, also to the left.

Good luck!  I personally chose a unilateral mx w/immediate Diep recon after starting off with a lumpectomy.  My best advice from my experience is to be sure you have a highly experienced breast (only) surgeon and a good MRI before deciding on which surgery is right for you.  My bio page explains more.   (((Hugs))), and glad you've found BCO, although I'm sorry you have reason to be here.      Deanna

Hi Beth, glad to meet you but sorry it was here, I was DX with ILC on 5/31/13 and I am having BLM with reconstruction this Thursday not an easy choice but you do need to do your own research and come up with a desion that feels right for you!!! ILC is a sneaky cancer and has a tendency to be B/L and it is hard to detect on mammo. I just want this monster out and I am comfortable with my choice in order to eliminate any chance of reoccurrence. Please keep us posted so that we can follow your journey.



Shary🌻

I would recommend a BLM with immediate reconstruction.  Don't make the same mistake that I did with a lumpectomy and radiation only to need more surgery within a couple of years.  It is very hard to heal after skin has been radiated.  ILC is sneaky no matter what the size.  I wish I could go back to 2006 and do things over again.  Good luck with your decision!

Nancy

Keep in mind that ILC lesions usually appear smaller on scans (even MRI) than they really are due to their "Indian file" growth pattern and it can be hard to get clean margins. The quadrant/location of the incision will also be a consideration - for my inner upper spot, a good cosmetic result would have been difficult to achieve. The deciding factor was the discovery of an IDC tumor under my arm making mastectomy the best option.

Dear Beth,

Just want to tell you first that I really like your name, cultivate gratitude. If you've already got it together enough to make that your handle, you'll be fine:) Getting your head in a good place will help you a great deal.

My advice would be to get a number of opinions and find drs you feel you can really talk to and trust. You'll be faced with some decisions that are grey, could be ok either way, and in many ways these are the hardest decisions. A lot depends on your personal make up and tolerance for risk, pain, etc.

My ILC was found on a routine mammogram. Tumor was less than 2 cm so I had the choice between lumpectomy w radiation and mastectomy w no radiation. My husband is a plastic surgeon and he and a colleague, a breast surgeon, told me not to react instinctively (rip the entire enemy breast off with my bare hands that minute.) That though it's counter intuitive, survival rates (not the same as recurrence rates) are the same lumpectomy w rads vs mastectomy. That there is validity to trying to keep a breast. I heard them but deep down still wanted that mastectomy, though I didn't voice this, keeping all options open for my own consideration. An MRI two days later found a second tiny tumor, far from the first, and this made breast conservation much more challenging (would have been left w Swiss cheese, very deformed breast.) I had the unimx (by the way, post op path showed exactly what pre op imaging predicted. I am telling you this because some women are against lumpectomies worrying that there's more in there than can be seen on MRIs. I didn't have this experience.) A mastectomy isn't easy to get used to, (though i found the actual surgical procedure not difficult) but I'm grateful for not having to have had rads. I haven't yet done reconstruction (a bit ironic given that it's hubby's business.) thank god, he's loving and accepting, and I just needed to take a break from medical procedures and think straight for a bit. May yet do it, maybe not. I'm actually ok w prostheses; I swim a lot and was worried that each surgical option might compromise this, or just might not like any recon options enough to go through w it. Anyway, sorry to ramble. Hope this is helpful. Hang in,

Shari

Summergal, I had a bmx with a sentinel node bx. If this is the test that you are talking about let me explain that my "frozen section" that was tested while I was having surgery came back negative for cancer. They closed me up and the final pathology came back Positive for cancer. Lobular also doesnt test well on this test. I had to go. back a month later and get an axillary dissection and the final path from that was 8 positive nodes out of 15. The one thing I have learned is no matter how much planning you put in you may still have surprises.

Good luck. and let us know how it goes.



Cultivate, I chose bmx cause my tumors were too big for lumpexctomy and I didnt trust mammos to follow the other breast. I still had to have chemo and radiation. Healing hugsand please let us know how you are doing