12. On the up

Over the weekend I spend some time thinking. Trying to decide what I want to have done. REALLY I want to be brave enough to have a mastectomy. I want to not have to worry about cancer, at least, not in my left breast, again. Eventually, when R goes out with his mates and the house is empty, I decide to open the pack of information I was given at the first appointment.

The pack details a website called BresDex. I log on and start reading the information. It’s too much. I make a cup of tea and come back. The site has video clips on it. I watch the clip about chemo. Tired. Exhaustion. Sickness. Hair falling out in clumps. Great, bloody marvellous.

Next I watch the clip about radio therapy. Scary shit. Thinning skin. Worst of all, with radio therapy, it isn’t possible to have reconstruction at the same time as the mastectomy. This makes the choice of mastectomy even worse. It would mean waiting a year for reconstruction.

I've previously looked on the net at pictures of women post lumpectomy. Even a squeamish individual like me can cope with them. The worst is hard, but just about manageable. The BresDex site has pictures of women post mastectomy. They make me physically recoil and weep. I can’t look and go to the lumpectomy pictures. All manageable. Lop sided boobs, scarred boobs, puckered skin. BUT this can be corrected (and I determine to confirm this when I see the consultant next week).

The site also has a consultant and various women talking about choices. They discuss things I’ve never considered, such as how unbalanced large breasted women will feel post mastectomy. Makes sense to me. My boobs are really heavy. The consultant also talks about success rates in a very convincing way.

Next I go to the questions. There are a whole series of questions, including things about self image, fear of anaesthetic, the importance of sex. One of my real issues is the sensitivity of my nipples. I KNOW living is way more important than sex, but I also know that I’m a really sexual person and don’t want to have numb boobs unless it’s a life or death equation. I answer all the questions and the overall result is just tipped into lumpectomy as a choice. Which makes sense to me.