When I heard the diagnosis the thought of dying didn’t cross my mind. I knew it had been caught early and I knew that there many ways to eradicate cancer in this day and age.
When I heard “double mastectomy” is when things really got real for me. My breasts were my favorite assets, they were my sensuality when it came to having sex. They were part of my body for god’s sake. My breasts would have provided nourishment for a baby one day – if that was even possible anymore…
I immediately broke down in the office. My mother teared up as well. The doctors lacked any compassion. “You know a lot of people have to have limbs removed,” she said to me.
But wait? These WERE limbs to me. These were part of my womanhood. These fed babies.
The doctors gave me the option of removing one breast or both. I decided to remove both to hopefully further eradicate any possibility of getting cancer again. Though this is not guaranteed.
Despite my shock and disappointment, I was finally able to pull myself together and opt for the double mastectomy option.
Some women who’ve been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in one breast choose to have that breast and the other healthy breast removed -- a double mastectomy. Removing the other healthy breast is called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.
The healthy breast usually is removed because of an understandable fear that a new, second breast cancer might develop in that breast. More and more women who’ve been diagnosed are opting for contralateral prophylactic mastectomy -- in the late 1990s, between 4% and 6% of women who were having mastectomy decided to have the other healthy breast removed. Research published in 2016 found that rates of prophylactic mastectomy more than tripled from 2002 to 2012, even though other studies have shown that removing the other healthy breast doesn’t improve survival.
A new study has found that nearly half of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer considered having a double mastectomy and one in six -- about 17% -- had the surgery, including many women who were at low risk of developing a second breast cancer.
The study was published online on Dec. 21, 2016 by JAMA Surgery. Read the abstract of “Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy Decisions in a Population-Based Sample of Patients With Early-Stage Breast Cancer.”
“Young women with breast cancer struggle with many issues either not present or much less severe than in the lives of older women, including:
- The possibility of early menopause
- Effects on fertility
- Questions about pregnancy after diagnosis
- Concerns about body image
- Challenges to financial stability
Here is a nice article by Jessica Grono about choosing between a single or double mastectomy: Mastectomy was inevitable, but single or double was a choice
An NPR article in 2014 as well as other studies believe that a double mastectomy is not necessarily going to further reduce changes of breast cancer recurrence. Double Mastectomies Don't Yield Expected Results, Study Finds
