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I thought I'd do a monthly summary for anyone reading who might be considering this surgery. For those not interested in this, here's a pass: TL:DNR. This is the second of five summary posts. The first post is here.
I thought I'd do a monthly summary for anyone reading who might be considering this surgery. For those not interested in this, here's a pass: TL:DNR. This is the second of five summary posts. The first post is here.
In the meantime: For women considered at high- risk for breast cancer docs recommend multiple yearly screenings early and often. There is also the option to take a drug called tamoxifen, but only if I was done or not interested in having children; one other side effect, along with MANY others, is a noted increase in the type of cancer my mother was recovering from. The final option was the risk- reducing surgery. My ongoing recommendations: get the screenings, 13. Get thee to an appropriate BMI. Exercise at least 4 hours per week.
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| {Me last week two days following my first fill. Flat, but happy.} |
Selecting doctors: I wanted to like mine, and I wanted to stay at my university hospital, ranked one of the best in the U.S. I wanted the best because this was the hardest medical decision I've ever had to make, and because I'd never even had anesthesia before (except for getting my wisdom teeth out -- go figure). I asked around on blogs and forums, and "interviewed" one doc whose manner was, I thought, crass and breezy.
Hospital policy wouldn't initially allow me to see his counterpart (a fact which was not explained to me beforehand--I'd actually wanted to see his counterpart in the first place, but she didn't have openings for weeks), so I straight up lied about having a religious reason for preferring a female doc. The next two docs had been described to me both from online friends and at a cancer conference as "the dream team," and I liked and appreciated their manner work (yep, I read their research-- it's what I do all day anyway...why not for my health?).
Hospital policy wouldn't initially allow me to see his counterpart (a fact which was not explained to me beforehand--I'd actually wanted to see his counterpart in the first place, but she didn't have openings for weeks), so I straight up lied about having a religious reason for preferring a female doc. The next two docs had been described to me both from online friends and at a cancer conference as "the dream team," and I liked and appreciated their manner work (yep, I read their research-- it's what I do all day anyway...why not for my health?).
*This summary is the second in a series of five posts on the subject. For others, use the search function to search "prophylactic bilateral mastectomy."*
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