For anyone dropping in on this post who may not know me, I DO NOT HAVE BREAST CANCER! Thank goodness.
However, I have several close relatives who’ve been victimized by this awful diagnosis, some of which were diagnosed at a relatively young age. My sister and I have had many conversations over the last few years about how we’re “genetically screwed” between the cardiac issues and cancer that seems to plague our family.
Early last year (or maybe the year before? What year even is this??), anyway, I can specifically recall a phone chat between my sister and I where we both talked about how ‘over’ we were with worrying about our breast health and whether we, too, would ever get the awful news of being diagnosed with the ugly ‘C’ word. Without a second thought, I told her I’d gladly get a mastectomy as a prevention measure, and she felt similarly.
It was at that point I’d had an epiphany of sorts. I realized I had zero use for my breasts, and zero love for them. In the wise words of Michael Scott, they were no more than “ticking time bags” to me. So I decided to do what anyone with good sense would do, I turned to Dr. Google to explore the idea of prophylactic mastectomies. Oh boy…
In my research, I came across a prophylactic option known as a nipple sparing mastectomy, which sounded promising and less drastic than a traditional mastectomy.
And then I realized our insurance would never cover such a surgery, and we had some major unforeseen expenses last year, as well as our 10 year anniversary trip, and then Gertie died suddenly, so the boob research got put on the back burner for a while.
But then I turned 40, and it soon struck me that I was creeping into the age range that some of the women in my family received their breast cancer diagnosis. Actually taking action on this reality still felt far away, until a very serendipitous event took place that put me in touch with Dr. Dennis Schimpf, owner of Sweetgrass Plastic Surgery.
More on that later, as it’s now after midnight and tomorrow (or later today, I suppose) I will finally be taking decisive action to reduce my chances of getting breast cancer. No, I’m not having a double mastectomy after all. Nor am I having a nipple sparing mastectomy. Instead, I will be having a prophylactic breast reduction, or as I like to call it, an “extreme breast reduction” as a preventative measure to reduce the volume of breast tissue present, thus reduce my risk of getting breast cancer in the future. No, I will not be getting implants (that’s usually the first question I get;))…the idea of implants just doesn’t interest me at this stage in my life.
Once I’ve recovered from my surgery, I’ll write up another post and answer some of the other commonly asked questions I’ve been getting ever since I began discussing this on instagram, so stay tuned for that if you’re interested.
But for now…
Ta-ta, ta-tas!! It’s been nice knowing you, but it’s time to go.
Byeeeee!!!
[…] my overall experience and what led me down this path. I talk about the “why” a bit in this post that I quickly wrote in the wee hours the night before my surgery, but I’ll reiterate the […]