Six weeks ago, I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.
As a breast cancer and breast plastic surgeon, I see women all the time who are in the exact same place I’ve been since receiving the phone call from the pathologist. Shocked and terrified by the news, overwhelmed by what this is going to mean for their life in both the short- and the long-term, waiting for results from what seems like endless tests that could significantly change their treatment options. When talking about my practice, I would tell people that my goal was to provide the kind of personalized, high-touch care that I would want to have if I were in my patients’ position - I never imagined I’d actually be needing that kind of care myself, though.
So far the journey has been, and I know will continue to be, an unpredictable course of emotional highs and lows, buoyed by great testing news one day only to be followed by an evening where I can’t stop tearing up every time I hug my three young kids. I really never understood until now that the discussion I have with my patients about surgical choices for breast cancer in so many ways isn’t about choices at all; it’s really about picking what seems like the better of two non-ideal options for a disease you certainly didn’t choose to get and that will be a part of you in some way for the rest of your life.
I truly believe these options can get better, that we can come up with new techniques and technologies that continue to give women great cancer outcomes but do an even better job at minimizing the impact on their previously scheduled, pre-cancer lives. Approaches that don’t take away from their feelings of self; leave them feeling as close to “normal” as possible; allow them to maintain their jobs, family life, exercise routines, and personal relationships without compromise following surgery. As I’ve struggled with my own surgical “choices” over the past six weeks, I know that these better options can’t come soon enough.