Pathology results came back: left side now cancer free but right side… every single biopsy they took, even if normal looking tissue, contained invasive breast cancer. It was what they call multifocal breast cancer, with dozens of tiny strands and tumours all through the breast, even the nipple. The actual diagnosis form used the term ‘pleomorphic’ which even my doctor hadn’t heard of, but it means ‘random form’.There was no choice but to do a mastectomy of the right side, and biopsy the sentinel nodes on that side - hoping they too were clear.
I was offered the possibility of immediate reconstruction so saw the plastic surgeon to go over my options. I rejected the idea of using my own tummy tissue - the DIEP procedure as it’s a huge operation and I didn’t feel I could cope with it physically or psychologically at this stage (although it could be done later). And I really didn’t want to go flat. So the compromise I was offered was to be fitted with an expandable implant which would initially be inserted deflated and then enlarged as my incision healed to match the other side (which hasn’t yet settled on it’s final size and shape and might take a year to do so).
A right sided mastectomy and reconstruction with expandable implant was booked. I was to spend 3-5 days in hospital and I was warned that around 1 in 10 implants fail, which is quite a daunting statistic. I was still wondering if I’d made the right decision but without a Crystal ball who knows?
