FOOBS: POST MASTECTOMY

Me and My Foobs: What It's Really Like Post-Mastectomy 

Joanna Montgomery

Wife, mother, writer,

 cancer dominatrix

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joannamontgomery/post-mastectomy-my-new-foobs_b_3886195.html

Thank you Joanna for sharing your experience. It's so important that we all share our experiences, because they all are different. We can only learn from all of them. I personally did not receive any comments from others that "I was lucky getting a boob job"-- I did receive a lot of commentary of "isn't that drastic!?" I did a lot of research before I chose my surgeons. I ultimately did what was right for me. Every person has a different surgical experience, result, and post-op experience. I was very fortunate to have had no issues after my nipple sparing, skin sparing mastectomy and reconstruction--and even feel my breasts look better than they did before. While there are so many variables and choices, I do believe thorough research on all options available, plus researching doctors' surgical expertise/experience with the particular type of surgery are both very important to your best chance of desired outcome. There are so many factors that go into ones decision making process on mastectomy choices. I am happy you shed light on your experience Joanna. Yes, prophylactic mastectomies with reconstruction are definitely not boob jobs--I completely agree. However, my one point would be that I don't want BRCA positive and high risk women to be steered away from what I feel is the best possible "cure"at the moment for BRCA positive and high risk women to avoid breast cancer. There is research indicating BRCA1 positive women tend to get triple negative breast cancer. (From Komen: Women who have a BRCA1 mutation are at higher risk for triple negative breast cancer, as they tend to have breast cancers that are triple negative [113-114]. Triple negative breast cancers are:Estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) Progesterone receptor-negative (PR-) HER2/neu-negative (HER2-) Triple negative cancers being very aggressive cancers that are very hard to treat. 

http://ww5.komen.org/Breas.../InheritedGeneticMutations.html and 

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/777232 

Breast reconstruction has made so many advances and many reconstructions CAN mimic augmentations aesthetically. For me, THAT is an important point that I want BRCA positive and high risk women to understand too. This information and knowledge about reconstruction advances and options can help women be more comfortable with their decisions to move forward with what I feel can be a life-saving surgery.