My husband and I did speak of reconstruction. He was in favor of it. I wasn't so sure and wanted to keep the focus on getting that cancer out. I felt it was a decision that could wait.
Now my surgeon was suggesting sooner rather than later. So I postponed the mastectomies a week or so and began to research reconstruction.
Breast reconstruction is not as straightforward as a mastectomy. The issues are not medical but rather aesthetic, emotional, and personal. How did I want my breasts to look? To feel? Who would shape them? What would I fill them with? And, since I must lose my nipples, should I tattoo them or recreate them?
I found a plastic surgeon with a beautiful set of before and after pictures and a compassionate staff. With regards to implants, my plastic surgeon only used the INAMED brand because of their reliably impeccable quality. Since silicone is an option for breast cancer-related reconstruction, he asked if I wanted "silicone or saline." He recommended silicone for comfort and I said, "I'll take two."
Losing my breasts was not easy. But as long as I was making decisions about new breasts I figured I might as well seize the opportunity to create the breasts of my dreams. Don't hundreds of thousands of woman have or contemplate plastic surgery for the perfect breasts?
Initially I evaluated my original breasts for their strengths and weaknesses. Frankly, as much as I loved their sizeable shape, even with an exercise bra, they hurt when I jogged. Smaller breasts would be better for my workouts. As for my beloved nipples, well, tattooed nipples would allow me to go braless. The freedom to go braless and jogging without bopping breasts sounded pretty good, considering.
Finally it was all scheduled. The mastectomy, lymph node removal, and breast reconstruction would take place in back to back surgeries, with two weeks between the operation on my right breast and the one on my left breast. I wasn't worried about the pain. I was worried about being away from my children and staying overnight in the hospital. I was worried about who was going to go grocery shopping, cook, run errands, make lunches, drive to school and activities. What was I going to do if I could not take care of anything or anyone for a total of 6-8 weeks? This was impossible to imagine for me, my husband, and our children who were in kindergarten and second grade.
Panic definitely set it in. My parents were dead, my husband's mother was dead as well, and his father and stepmother were frail. Both of our families were scattered across the country. Since my husband and I were both sole-proprietors we didn't have a work community. We had a few friends but they all had families of their own. How were we going to manage?
We could never have predicted the outpouring of love and generosity that came from family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances and outright strangers. Once the word was out that I had breast cancer people went out of their way to be helpful. What would I have done without my friend who drove me to my surgeries so my husband could get the children off to school? What would I have done without my friend who made the master post-operative family schedule that I could follow? What would I have done if my niece hadn't flown in after the first surgery and my sister after the second? After they left, who could have imagined that the parents of my children's classmates (many whom I had never met) would pitch in to hire a family cook to help with our meals?