As important as it is to be well informed, I’m beginning to think you can over research things. I just spent half an hour looking at pictures of women with lumpectomies, hysterectomies and breast reconstructions. Definitely not pretty pictures! If you want to look at pretty breasts, check out Playboy or Victoria’s Secret catalogs. It’s very stressful to think of having a boob whacked off but I didn’t expect that the reconstructed ones would be ugly too.
External factors, like how much radiation my body can tolerate, may end up making the decision for me and that may actually be a relief. I’m not sure I want to make the decision and then live with the results if I am not happy with them. A couple of my women friends have had double mastectomies with no reconstruction and say they have no regrets. Maybe getting rid of the cancer is a big enough relief that the superficial aspects of how your chest looks aren’t as important as we make it.
Some think that a mastectomy is more effective because there is less likelihood of a recurrence. Here’s what I read about that:
If breast cancer is detected in its earliest stage, treatment results in a 10-year survival rate (that is, percent of women still living) of more than 90%. Long-term survival is similar whether the woman chooses lumpectomy or mastectomy. The difference between the treatments is the risk of recurrence locally (in the breast or on the chest wall). The 20-year risk of local recurrence after mastectomy is 3%-5% compared to 15%-20% after lumpectomy and radiation.
Source: emedicinehealth.com
To me that sounds like an increase of 10% to 15% in the odds that you will have a recurrence with only a lumpectomy. Of course that is recurrence, not survival that they are talking about. But undergoing treatment again? That's not very appealing. Is that enough to swing my vote? Maybe.
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